Crash

Yesterday, I went to have my astrological chart read. I'd never done that before; I mean, I've always known I'm a Gemini, but that was about the extent of it. I still have barely a grasp of what it all means, but the reading itself was fascinating, if only as a way to look at my life in larger terms, as a journey and not a series of events that have nothing to do with one another. This man knew nothing about me, not even what I did for a living, before he started my reading, and all I could do while he talked was to nod 'yes.' Yes to the intimate familiarity with the scary Underworld places, yes to my ability to sit with the scariness, to accept those experiences as helpful and meaningful; yes to me ability to have insight into mine and others' motives and the complexities of the psyche, yes to my ability to sit with others' scary experiences, to make it OK for them to be there; yes to my tendency to get codependent in relationships, yes to my continual need for new experiences, new knowledge; yes to my deep contact with spirituality and with the larger global consciousness that makes itself known in symbols; yes to the sense that I've always had of a staggeringly powerful life force within me that yearns for freedom; yes to the intensity of my pain, to my tendency to sacrifice myself and then get caught in a victim/martyr story; yes to my deep empathy that makes the world difficult to be in, yes to my struggles, yes to me constant yearning for a nest, a place of comfort, a safe harbor in relationship; yes to my need to create, to process, to integrate, and to witness life's coiling mysteries; yes to my constant moving, thinking, and seeking, yes to my feeling misunderstood and separate. There was so much information to process, I still don't know whether I grasp it all yet.

But the next day, today, right now, I was sitting in a meeting at work and all of a sudden I knew I had to get out of there. Blood sugar crash. I felt like I was going to faint. All of a sudden a wave of pain engulfed me, like I was sitting in a pit of fire. I actually felt like there might be steam rising from me. A friend of mine might suggest that maybe it wasn't my pain, but it might as well have been. I sat in the meeting pulling on my hair the way I do when I'm nervous, waiting to see what it would do. I felt faint, I felt constricted. Finally, in the middle of the meeting, I got up and left, raced to my office, ate some fruit, drank some water, then lay on the floor. And as I lay, the sobs came and I cried in deep gasps, like crying for the whole universe of suffering that exists, not only my own. My brain roiled and coiled frantically, like a cat in a bag. It kept telling me: I can't do this. I can't do this. It hurts too much. I need too much, a need that nobody can ever fill. And if I can't be filled, then I won't survive. The pain alone will kill me. I was frantic, desperate. When the tears subsided I got up from the floor and knew I had to write it all down. Out of me.

Now I'm writing with trembling hands, the vestiges of my blood sugar crash, and a deep childlike terror in the pit of my stomach. It's like being on a life raft in the middle of a huge ocean, with no ships in sight and no rescue. I am the only one I can count on, and I can't even count on me.

It sounds so dire. And it is. Is this post a cry for help? Possibly. Though I doubt any help exists. I kept asking myself in the meeting: Are you strong enough to handle this pain? Can you take it? And I kept answering myself: I don't know. I don't know. But here I am, typing. I did survive it. Do you think I'm crazy? Possibly. But maybe I'm really, really sane. Maybe, as the astrological guy suggested, one of my karmic lessons is to trust that the Universe will provide for me, and confronting these intense fears - even in a Friday late morning staff meeting -  staring them in the blood-filled eyes,  is a way to learn to trust, the way people with phobias have to confront their fears in order to get over them.

I still don't know if I can do this. I suppose eventually we get used to the waves crashing, or we don't, and we let them take us back to the place where we started. But here I am, still doing my work, still making plans with my friends. When things are dark, we let habit take over until we can exert more control over ourselves. I'll sit here and wait for the sun to rise, as it always does.

Life wobbles and flows, like some child's toy. There are the highlights - the sitting in the sunlight with a dear friend, talking, making plans, getting excited about the coming days - then the mistakes and the hitches when I act in ways I'm not proud of and feel the stabs of guilt and shame, and feel like throwing myself in the water in my frustration at not being perfect. There are the days waking up when it hurts to even think about getting out of bed, but there's no choice, then the successes at work where I feel the elation of doing something well. There are the lonely nights and the distinctly not-lonely ones. There are the extended periods of joy when I try not to worry about the dark cloud coming back. There are the moments of realizing that, in that moment, I'm happy, and feeling stunned that that's the case, as well as worried, wondering if that joy is too dependent on someone else's place in my life. There's the crabbiness,  the pettiness, the disliking someone for no apparent reason, and then the bouts of compassion, kindness, and liking someone for no known reason, either. The moments when the most subtle shift of moods happen, where it's clear that the other side of the coin of irritation is an amused acceptance, the other side of the coin of a schoolgirl crush is the moment when I see the crush for who he is: a maddeningly imperfect human.

It's getting harder and harder for me to pretend or to expect that life will ever offer anything constant, certain, or trustworthy. And at 40, finally understanding, or beginning to understand this anyway, is really sort of frightening. It's scary to know that I can't trust my own mind. The difference between the moments of joy and the moments of pain are so staggering that it's like I experience them as two distinctly different people. How on earth can we humans handle this, hosting this ghost in our heads that tell us things that aren't true, and feeling, in the moment, that those emotions are the truest experiences in the world?

But the flip side is that as I get more and more frustrated at my inability to foresee the troughs and peaks of the waves, there's part of me that is giving up trying to foresee them, and I suspect that this is the key: giving up the expectation of anything ever staying consistent is the way to stop the suffering at this unchangeable fact.  But the core longing for something I can count on, absolutely count on, is so strong that giving up that hope seems impossible, like letting go of my arm, or just choosing to stop breathing forever. You can't let go of or stop something that is so intrinsic to you. I think if I learn enough from my mistakes, that i won't keep making them, or if I just discover that one hidden secret that will unlock the universe, I will no longer have bouts of depression, anxiety, sadness, and loneliness. Or that if I can fit the right key into the right lock, I'll be guaranteed success in everything: relationships, work, enlightenment, family life, I'll even become more attractive and people will like me more.

What is it about the human brain that thinks there's an answer out there, anyway?