Working to Rest

My mind is struggling against the quiet my spirit wants. It tries to pull me underneath where all is churning and blurry and deafening with confusion. All I need to do is be still and float peacefully with the current, but I thrash around instead, looking for some kind of handhold or foothold that isn't there right now.

I can't keep still because it is work to do so. I confuse this effort at peacefulness with struggle, and my mind convinces me that I need to sleep in instead of writing in my journal, that I need to read the news and dink around on the internet instead of playing music, in order to relax.

But these are distractions and avoidances, not relaxation. I know because I feel even worse after doing them.

It takes effort to be at peace. It means waking up a little earlier. And not berating myself for NOT waking up early either--I'm in mourning after all--but telling myself gently that it is hard to absorb yet another loss, and that I know what will comfort me: writing and music.

My mind and ego say that I can wallow for a while. My spirit says, Be sad and grieve, but in a way that takes care to let those feelings flow in music and words. Oversleeping, excessive distractions like the internet, worry over housework that I don't get to: this is wallowing and stuffing away what needs to come out, and needs coaxing to come out.

It's OK to write and play music--it is NOT an indulgence. It feeds me, it heals me. Healing takes effort because it requires overruling the mind games of guilt and defeatism. My mind is even telling me I am guilty of laziness because I don't create, when really it's the reverse: I feel I'm avoiding the "real work" of chores if I play music or write. Or is that my mind/ego at it again? --I'm confused. My mind is either clever or diabolical. Possibly both.

Meanwhile, my husband has a career that he desperately wishes were something he cared about, because he works very hard at it yet has no interest in it whatsoever. At this moment Dan is standing by for a flight home from Chicago, where he has been all week. It sounds like it's been miserable: from what he's told me, there is literally nothing in the Chicago suburb where his client's offices are. He has been working in an office building in a warehouse district, and the only place to eat meals is at his hotel.

He tells me not to feel guilty. I am almost convinced not to (a Catholic upbringing and American cultural ideals about work have quite the grip on my psyche--a subject for a later post). He is a big boy, he says, and knows what he needs to do for himself (unlike me). I listen to him when he needs to vent and I don't try to fix his situation or give him advice.

He does great work for his firm, because he believes in doing a good job even though it's personally unsatisfying. But he has little time or energy left for seeing friends, and misses his time with us. I myself however, could go out for drinks with some girlfriends last night. I almost cried when one of them said she felt struck by Dan's commitment to do whatever it takes to care for me.

We are committed to our healing, in our own way. Every day I will move forward. That means writing something, every day. It means praying for me and for our little family we want to grow. It means getting one chore done every day and having that be enough. It means closing my eyes and opening my heart to listen.