What goes up comes down again, what goes left goes right, and vice versa, yes?
Last Saturday, I spent a bit more time than I care to admit in bed. The body’s fight or flight response takes a toll, my mind has been heavy, and my heart has been heavier at times. Even in a glaring white room, with sounds of laughter squeezing in through the crack underneath the bedroom door, my weariness still won. When my daughter napped, I napped. I wanted nothing more than to close my eyes, shut out the world. My coping method was not healthy. It was to cry silent tears, feel the anxiety tighten through my shoulder blades, and sleep.
Monday morning, I slipped out of the beach house in the dark and drove up to work. My ears still stung from being submerged in salt water from swimming the day before. That’s what I did Sunday. Saturday I cried out the salty tears. Sunday, I seemed to soak myself in them.
I tried a stand up paddleboard for the first time this past weekend. The easy part was getting out on the board, getting my knees tucked up underneath, and steadying myself. As soon as I went to stand, everything went out from underneath me, and I tumbled over and down I went.
Falling out of control into the ocean, helpless, just when I thought things were great, the board shooting in the opposite direction. Come up for air. Regroup. Decide if I want to do it again, or realize it’s not for me and move on.
Do I question what is wrong with me? Is it grief? Am I grieving my son, still? Will I always be? Or, is it something else? Will it always be something else? Will it ever be something else?
My week had some low lows, and some high highs. It was manic. My week itself was literally bipolar. I’m still standing at the end of it, as I write this Friday afternoon. I’m in the calm middle spot now, I’m not at any end of a particular spectrum. Life is never even keeled. It’s always rolling from from one side to the other. Starboard to port. It’s just about where we are balancing on the board at any given time, and where the wave coming at us happens to break.