I'm sitting by an open window and the air is cool and soft, and smells of damp earth. The sky is brightly overcast. The toads are singing their high-pitched ethereal trills, and songbirds are whistling and chattering to each other. New leaves are sprouting on the bare trees in a haze of red, yellow, and bright green. Flowers are bursting everywhere—daffodils, tulips, trillium—and pink petals are raining down from the apple tree. It's a very soft and good kind of day. One where I'd love nothing more than to curl up in a blanket and read, enjoying the beauty of spring all around.
I guess I'm in the mood to do a bit of a personal update, so here goes. Get to know the blogger a lil bit for those of you who may be new around here. Some difficult stuff, some good stuff. Content warnings in the tags. Here we go.
First the hard stuff. Some of you may or may not know, a couple of years ago my dad died suddenly from a massive heart attack. I was present when he collapsed and gave him CPR as directed by 911 until the paramedics arrived. Dad made it to the hospital and they got his heart going again, but he didn't wake up after they stabilized him. We took him off life support a few days later when it became evident he wasn't coming back. He passed relatively quickly, but not easily, and it felt to me like I watched him die twice—once when he collapsed, and once at the hospital.
I've been seeing a therapist since then to deal with the trauma memories. Trauma, for those of you who aren't real sure how to define it, is usually an event characterized by "too much, too fast" plus some element of "something was 'supposed' to happen that didn't." In the case of my dad, for example, saving his life was put in my hands and I was totally unprepared for it (both physically and mentally)—I tried my hardest and I believed I should have been able to save him, but he died anyway.
Therapy started with EMDR (eye movement desensitization and reprocessing), which is hard to explain because therapists don't know exactly why it works, only that it does. It involves eye movement and vibration signaling on different sides of the body while revisiting traumatic memories. It's worth a search if you're interested in learning more. (And a side note, this is definitely the kind of therapy they should have shown Bucky receiving. This is exactly the kind of treatment he would have needed, and I'm high key considering writing it into a fic.) EMDR doesn't make trauma memories go away, but it does help to soften them (put them into past tense instead of present tense) and help your brain learn how to cope when they inevitably pop up.
Anyway, for me, EMDR graduated into talk therapy and then virtual sessions, getting further and further apart until I felt ready to strike off on my own. I finished up my sessions this month. Trauma wasn't the only reason I was seeing a therapist, but I went about as far with this particular therapist as I could since her focus was primarily trauma and grief. If I seek out another therapist in the future, it will be for issues surrounding more generalized depression, anxiety, and coping with queer identity.
Now that I've made that step, I'm feeling optimistic but also very tentative. Kind of like the cast has come off, but I still have to learn how to walk again. The wounds are still tender—especially since my dad's death isn't the only thing I've been trying to cope with over the last few years. I won't detail everything, because it's way too much. Suffice it to say I've felt so broken and stripped down to the bone for so long, and all of it exacerbated by our shared trauma and isolation caused by the pandemic.
So, yeah, it's a little bit scary being out here on my own after I've been used to the support of a therapist. The thing is I'm not all better simply because my therapist and I both agreed we've gotten as much out of our sessions as we could. I'm still going to have to work diligently to keep growing and to try to... process the things that are holding me back from, at the most basic level, properly expressing myself to others and taking care of myself. Beyond those basic goals, I want to keep growing and keep getting better so I can live more fully. If I can.
But I've learned that I need to take baby steps. Break things up into minuscule tasks. Do things that may be challenging, but are good for me, a little at a time. I'm trying to read more, chapter by chapter. Having a no-pressure book group with my friends has really helped on that front. I also rejoined OBOD (the Order of Bards, Ovates, and Druids)—which I started working with idk maybe seven years ago and then dropped when I first started really struggling with my health. My OBOD tutor is aware of my situation, supportive, and is totally okay with me working at my own pace—which I really need, since it's taken me about three months just to revisit the first three lessons. It's hard for me to get myself into the meditative, contemplative, spiritual, and creative space OBOD deals with, but once I'm there I can feel how much it feeds my soul. I'm also looking into doing volunteer work with a nearby nature preserve, once I have both my vaccinations and the organization starts accepting in-person volunteer work again.
So. I'm trying. And I'm trying to let that trying be enough.
I'm also trying to learn how to... cultivate my time better. To cut back on things that don't feed my wellbeing (like doom scrolling), and give myself more time for what I love, like reading, writing, drawing, and communicating with friends. The trick being to break up that time into manageable chunks. Because if I give myself a whole day of "writing time," for example, then I get overwhelmed. I need smaller, more clearly-defined goals I can achieve without totally exhausting myself every time I sit down to a task.
Nowhere to Go But Home is one of my creative projects I really, really want to get back to—for myself, not just for the people who want to know how the story ends. It's at the top of my list, and it's never really left my mind for the years it's been sitting idle, but there's just enough of it left to be truly daunting. It's not a small task, and it's one I'm going to have to undertake, like, one bite-sized piece at a time.
I made up a to-do list for the story earlier this year. And it includes some shiny long-term goals like formatting it into a free e-book for anyone who wants to download a copy. And today I feel like it's time to revisit the to-do list and start trying to set it into motion. I still can't make any promises about end-dates, but maybe if I start small—with tiny little weekly goals/updates, maybe?—I hope that'll be enough to get me going. The same way it's worked for my book club reading and for OBOD.
Anyway, it's on my radar. I'm circling it. And I believe returning to that story in particular—and some other stories I've had percolating—will be part of my long-term healing journey. I'm a bit scared, a bit tentative, still a bit raw, but I'm excited to try, and to see where the road takes me.
