It’s been over six months since I separated from my husband and partner of seven years. I hit the ground running and didn’t look back. I filled my calendar with lunch dates and important meetings. I signed myself up for a variety of different classes. I lost weight. I felt like I could do anything and everything.
I wrote a raunchy country musical with 20 friggin songs in it. I went sailing in the Caribbean for 10 days and took someone who was practically a stranger with me and paid for his expenses (it didn’t end well either). I met with executive producers and people with important connections to get major projects off the ground. I formed strong bonds and partnerships with friends and we were going to big things together; a live variety show in a 400 seat venue. Monthly.
I was gigging all the time. Playing music. Writing music. Scoring film soundtracks. I was writing 3 pages of stream of consciousness every morning before I got out of bed. I gave up coffee, sugar, dairy, wheat, alcohol. I was doing calisthenics every freaking morning. I was goddamn super woman.
It appears as though I was afraid that if I gave myself a minute, even one minute of unstructured time, it would all fall apart. If I sat alone with myself for any length of time the tingle would begin in the back of my throat and then the tears would start. I just had to keep moving.
Now I’ve met someone special and my routine is interrupted. Suddenly, I don’t feel so bad when I’m standing still. There is a connection. There is chemistry. But there is no routine.
I find myself falling in love and at the same time falling apart. It’s as if I was only being held together by this thin epoxy of control that gets all tacky when a little heat is applied.
Maybe it is not possible to pick and choose our emotions. Perhaps one cannot fully express love while holding back other emotions, especially strong feelings of sadness and grief.
I’m pretty “happy” right now… and yet I’m waking up again in the middle of the night with panic attacks. My life is good… and yet I find myself unable to return calls or text messages or do something as simple and benign as washing the dishes or meeting a close friend for lunch. I have everything I need right now to be fulfilled… and yet I’m sitting here crying as I’m typing, for no reason other than I’ve sat still long enough to feel the things that I’ve been trying not to feel.
I have no great insight to offer on this matter. Only a snapshot into my secret reality that has kept me for the past 34 years from fully realizing my potential.