Thursday, April 24, 2014

Keep a light on



While a fence protects the fenced, 
it also imprisons the protected.” 

― Mokokoma Mokhonoana


I'm traveling tomorrow and this always seems to send me into a tailspin. I'd love to be one of those people who loves travel but in fact I'm more like Anne Tyler's protagonist in The Accidental Tourist, I hate leaving my home. When I look back on the young woman I was, who spent the decade of her twenties jumping on planes at a moment's notice for work, I wonder who she is, where she went. I am full of anxieties today, despite a sweet night with my husband, just the two of us, our son elsewhere. Do you ever have a thought in your head that you know you might have snatched from thin air, but it won't leave you alone? This is my brain this morning. I don't feel secure. Where on earth did this core feeling of jeopardy come from? Where did this fear of accepting what seems true on the surface take root in me? My throat, my chest, are churning. That's how it feels. I want to jump out of my skin in the most literal sense of the cliche. And inevitably, I make up reasons, and wonder if maybe I'm not really making them up, if these thoughts I torture myself with might actually be true. 

Sick sad whimpering puppy. 

Well, I'll be gone for a little while. I'll be reading your blogs on my phone but I'm not sure if I will be posting while I am away, so please keep a light on for me until I return.

Love.



7 comments:

  1. Which is why there are sometimes many unlocked gates.
    When I moved into this house, there were gates and locks galore. I have used none of them. So far, the only thing which has intruded on us has been possums and coons and bats and lizards and owls and hawks and Seventh Day Adventists and Mormons.
    But. This is Lloyd.
    I am so grateful to live here. But hell- I sure can't walk down the block and get brunch or pizza or, well, anything. So yes, there are trade-offs.

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  2. I hope the travel will help you separate the truth from the fiction. Safe journeys. Send yourself some love.

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  3. I think you are still quivering from emotions, and knowing you are going to see your mother (even though that in itself is pleasant enough) and deal with her emotions too from losing her sister, may have you more on edge than you might normally be. We'll keep the light on.

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  4. Safe travels to you -- I know that anxiety before a trip, when you start to think that maybe you're having premonitions (when really it's just adrenaline and anxiety). I hope you have clear skies and a rewarding time with your mother.

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  5. Oh yes, the light is always on, I will keep you in it's glow.

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  6. I'll keep a light on. You are not crazy. Parenthood and aging do this to us. We are not alone. It's comforting to me to find other friends who have irrational fears when travelling now that they are parents. None of us felt this way when we were young, traipsing where ever we wanted without a care in the world. Those days are gone for me to. I'm even more anxious when all of us travel together, should something awful happen and my family of end of the line children might disappear. I fear every night when travelling with my daughter or son but without my husband that I might die in my sleep and they will be left alone to figure out how to get home. This is stupid, I know. Irrational and a waste of my brain, but the thought is there, the fear is real and will not go away. I've been travelling a bit lately and I'm wearing down from it, tired, tired, tired. May your trip be a good one, and may you know that you will return home, safe and sound to your loved ones. xo

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