heat: (n)
- the quality of being hot; high temperature.
- intensity of feeling, especially of anger or excitement. (Source: Google Search)
I can’t take either.
I can remember summers where, my only goal was to get my skin to be as deep and rich as my mother’s. I would lie out in the sun and take in every ray.
I also remember turning on my space heater faithfully, every day, in my Corporate America cubicle.
I remember loving heat.
I remember loving the newness of adventure.
I have never loved anxiety. Or arguments. Or fighting.
These days, I can’t take any of it. Not the summer heat, not the heat of feeling deeply, not the feeling or fallout of anger. These days, I can’t even take too much excitement. I shut down. Can’t take it.
Heat causes change. And when things change, I freeze. I call this introspection. My therapist calls this Adjustment Disorder, with depressed mood.
What this looks like on me, is sitting around, replaying the event ad infinitum and thinking of/creating possible different scenarios and outcomes. Like I said, I thought I was introspecting. At one time, I thought that “processing” the barrage of what ifs and I should’ves and she/he must thinks was me, taking inventory, taking responsibility, and finally moving on.
And, normally, it could be. Thing is, it would be a year later, and I, was still “processing”.
I bunny ear processing, because I recognize that this is an integral function. It is the only means we have of navigating the world around us. I wasn’t doing that. I was responding to stress through debilitating thought patterns.
These days, I am able to recognize when I’m sliding down the slope.
Today is one of these days:
Y’all know I hate cleaning the kitchen, as is. Maybe it’s because I have to face my shit. The piles and piles of things I need to function, buried under old food and mold. I have to really look at and accept myself. Then I have to clean my mess. Mold and slime in the sink, mold and slime in the mind. Both unhealthy. Both the result of old that should’ve been gone long ago. Food = Thoughts.
I’m cleaning up both. This is Day 4.
Xo,
