I am this.

A Nice Change of Pace

The past few days have been rough ones for me. Early waking. Anxiety. Fatigue. Crying. I’ve had some rigorous thoughts and emotions smacking me around, holding my head under the sea of resentful resistance.

I thought an unusual thing (for this person to think):

I hate my life.

And when I thought that, I just went right along with how bad that was to be hating my life. I mean, I’m like the poster child for I Love My Life. I even have a visor that says so.

But, ah, no, I have not been loving it. It’s been a flattened roller coaster - wait, does that make sense?

The sunshine and rainbows dancing girl has taken a hiatus, gone on sabbatical, wandered off in a psychogenic fugue. In her place has been someone unfamiliar, overall. And just squishing her own head.

So there I am, embarrassed that I hate my life (well, that I was thinking that thought. I don’t hate it right now.) and not wanting to tell anyone close to me for fear they’d try to talk me out of it. And then it became this awesome jewel.

I was sitting in the car in the driveway, parked facing the street, looking at the wispy pecan tree across the road and the giant oak in our yard, unwinding from a day at work (and simultaneously being eaten alive by mosquitoes — just playing into the theme) and texting with some friends.

One friend thanked me for all the cool people I’ve introduced her to and said, “I’m loving my life right now.”

I knew this to be the case - I mean, I’d read about it on Facebook and could tell - and I didn’t begrudge her. I did know, however, that those bright highs are part of the ever-changing and inevitable wheel of life (right, Blake? It’s turnin’ and you can’t slow it down. Can’t let go and you can’t hold on.) and that she’d come down, too.

So she told me she loves her life and I messaged back - cuz I knew she wouldn’t take it too seriously - that I was glad for her, and that, in fact, I’ve been hating mine.

And then I contemplated, there in my comfy perch in the driveway, and saw:

It’s a nice change of pace.

And

snap.

I woke up.

[angels singing “hallelujah!”]

The feeling-like-shit stage of being a human is so normal and natural. Change is painful, especially - yes, you new vampires - when going through major transformations. We ask for this shit! And yet in the midst of it, it’s so flooded with heavy thought/emotion Siamese twins that one can’t see out to see that it’s not a problem.

But I got a glimpse of that this evening. Maybe I’d just moaned enough. Maybe I’d just beat myself up enough. Maybe the venting and honesty did it. Who cares?

The paradigm shift I’d been begging for popped up, in the most unexpected place. In the sentence, “I hate my life,” and in seeing, shoot, that’s a nice change of pace.

A girl doesn’t like to get bored.

:)