The house is completely unpacked and in its place... has been since last Wednesday. I have no idea how I did it all so fast nor why I felt so ridiculously compelled to get everything in total order within three days but I did. The walls are filled. The patio set has been assembled. The new benches have replaced fold-out chairs.
This last week I've been a monster - tightly wound and heavy-fisted, like a girl on a mission to get everything done and in its place and perfect. I remind myself of someone I don't feel like I am. And yet? I can't stop.
I haven't been able to stop.
I live in a state of anxiety-ridden impatience - an inability to sit still, not to mention an unhealthy obsession when it comes to controlling the few things I know I can. Like unpacking a house for instance. Like where to hang the family portrait and which way to face the television set and which books belong on which shelf.
"You're crazy," Hal tells me. And he's right so I yell at him. Tell him, "I just want everything in its place IS THAT SO HORRIBLE!"
And he puts his hands up in the air and leaves me be - surrounded by boxes, eyes bloodshot, shirt soaked with sweat. I know I must look crazed but this is me. This is how I operate. It would be impossible for me to step aside - allow even my husband to help me put things away.
I've told myself repeatedly this past week to slow down - to enjoy the buzz that is this new home - this new life. But patience is not my strength. Neither is quiet. It took me almost four years to get the massage Hal bought me for my twenty-fifth birthday because "I couldn't find the time," which I am only now realizing is insane.
My biggest fear is falling behind. Losing an idea because I was too tired to get out of bed to write it down. Relaxing for just enough time to lose my window, my place in line, my drive... And so? I refuse to break.
I am afraid of things unfinished. Petrified, even. The kind of fear that paralyzes: Living in an unfinished space. An unfinished life with unfinished days and unfinished stories and blog posts... I need endings. Closure. Neat little tidy little living rooms with bookcases full of books and everything in its place. I need everything neat, perhaps to balance the fact that I'm such a bumbling slice of disasterville - tucking wires and errant string inside my shirt- hoping no one notices.
It's all a bunch of craziness and I wish I could rid myself of the monsters that make me feel this way - inadequate unless finished - fixated on the end instead of the during...
Every morning I lace up my sneakers so fast I forget to double-knot. And by mid-day, I'm tripping over shoelaces untied and unraveling, trying to keep up with everything - afraid that if I stop for even two seconds, to take a breath, to close my eyes, that I will open them and my entire life will turn to sand.
In the meantime, I go. I go and I go and I go. Because I don't physically know how to stop. Because I know that if I do, I'll crash hard. And while I'm healing in body casts? These holes I've been digging through the night will fill with water and close. And everything will be gone. This house and this blog and every person who has ever stood behind me, supported me, loved me despite my inability to vibrate within a normal frequency.
Blessings and curses are the same clock at different times of the day. I can get it all done but I can't do it all. Far easier to write in a blog post than to convince myself during moments of derailment, when I cannot appreciate my own progress - so blinded am I by the frustration that comes with being a woman not superhuman.
Go away monsters. Back into the closet. Back under the bed.
The house, as I said, is unpacked. You win.
And I? Would like your permission to sleep now, please.
I'm very, very, veryveryvery tired.
(Also? I'm very, very, veryveryvery glad I never had to plan a wedding.)
GGC
