I feel like I should write something… it’s been a while and I feel guilty – sorta. I thought about writing another Valentine’s Day post, but this one from a year ago still holds up. I’ve also wanted to write about the absolute stuck in the pit of despair feeling I had over the weekend, but haven’t quite been able to figure out the best approach. I know my fight or flight responses have been triggered lately which has made it feel like the world is moving on or progressing and I’m not. This is when I tend to want to hole up, to disappear a bit, maybe emerge at a later date like Rocky, better trained and ready to fight. Except I’m not much of a fighter – I’m more inclined to just walk away. Except I also seldom walk away. I’m usually the one who stays behind to turn out the lights, the one standing in the dark trying to remember the paintings on the wall and the way someone’s eyes sparkled in the soft glow of a lamp.
I think the fight or flight feelings were triggered by a colleague’s resignation. On the one hand I understand, but on the other, it feels like an abandonment – this brings a whole lot of things up. And those things weighed on me most of the weekend. I thought about a number of different people who have all moved on in one way or another. I thought about the lives they might be living and there was a sense of jealousy over all that I didn’t know but assumed. As a result, I had trouble sleeping. This morning I was tired and irritable and when the overwhelming amount of work hit me as I walked into the office, my head began to hurt. Nothing felt manageable and I wasn’t sure where to begin. I’m not used to feeling this irritable or this… unmoored, yet oddly stuck.
My daughter reminded me that two years ago she visited me in Memphis and we took a road trip to Nashville to see Michael Kiwanuka. I could go for that type of getaway. Right now, nothing from the last few years seems very recognizable. And that’s how I’ve spent my night – a little between memory and the present moment, feeling as though I should write but not quite sure where to start or what to say.