500 Words, Day 25 -- Coming Down

I feel like all I am doing with this experiment is writing about all the sadness and pain of the last several years.  That and depression and feeling so horrible.   It seems that way because I keep going back through stuff I started writing the past, searching for something to dust off and make into 500 words.  It’s always so much easier to edit than to create (especially if it’s someone else’s work lol).  Yanno?  I pick up one of these drafts, do a word count, write an intro, boom, 500 words.   Done.   

I do feel this way a lot, it’s true.  But I think some good writing comes out of it.  So bear with me.  Maybe I’ll be funny again soon.  Hey, you know what, that Twitter thing was pretty good, the senior discount (still smarting over that one), the OkCupid nonsense, jazz like that.  It’s not all doom and gloom around here.  I mean, you know, right?

From February 2015 -- After I found the place; packed up all my shit; dealt with the closing; dodged the passive-aggressive arrows being shot in my direction; got my place set up; moved in; moved The Gamer in.  All of that almost on auto-pilot what’s next let’s do it don’t think just keep moving -- I think I was probably hypomanic, and I think that was a good thing.  GET SHIT DONE.  You know?  Crisis mode.  Except you can’t be in crisis mode all the time.  You have to ease up at some point.  I think that might be where all the sadness is coming from these days.  Summer doldrums.  Time to reflect.  Can be a double-edged sword, you know?

My back is aching in a new place.  Between my shoulder blades, just below my neck.  It feels like hardened concrete.  Like it was fluid and overnight, it turned to stone.  It also feels warm and sore, like sunburn, although it’s February -- I haven’t been out in the sun.   Am I sitting funny at work?  It's not like I pulled something.  I recognize that feeling.   This is as though I have sent some emotional pain to that place and now it's just radiating outward.   My hip joints ache, and if I sit too long, I'm stiff when I start to move around again.  I wince and limp out of bed in the morning.  My carpal tunnel is back -- my wrists alternate aching and numbness.  I got the wrist splints out again but I forget and fall asleep before I put them on and the pain wakes me up in the middle of the night.  Like there’s a string inside my arm that has been cut too short.

My body is trying to tell me something.  

I find myself swaying when I'm standing still, like I used to do when the babies were little, to soothe them.  If we had to wait in line at the supermarket, for example.  Just now, I reached back to touch my back between my shoulders, under my neck, where it's so tender and sore.  I started swaying and gently massaging my own back where I could reach, and out of nowhere, the tears came.  I carry all that fear and stress and anger and sadness around on my back like a big stick with a bucket tied on each end.   And I just stood and swayed and rubbed my own back and cried, silently, just taking deep breaths and letting them out, shuddering quietly.

I am a mess.   And I’m going to soothe myself and help myself heal and put this mess back together.  

See?  Done. 500 words can kiss my ass.  Let’s go to the movies.   Thanks!