Dear Diary, unfortunately, writing has been almost impossible lately. For people on the outside looking in, allow me to give a bit of insight. With my mental limitations, it is extraordinarily difficult, if not practically impossible, to pre-plan my writings with any degree of reliability. I write things from the heart, on the spot, in one sitting. Much of this has to do with memory capabilities and emotional states of being. In real terms, that means all conditions for success have to be in place simultaneously for such writings to occur. To compare that to life on Earth: we orbit the right kind of star, within the proper distance for liquid water to exist, and have the correct elements in our planetary makeup, et al., for life to be possible. If our star was hotter, or we orbited further out, etc., life wouldn’t have evolved on Earth. Akin to that, I grow frustrated when I can’t write when the conditions are improper.
There are times wherein I feel blank and detached. I feel empty, and I struggle to hear any internal movement at all. I go through life’s motions vaguely aware of existence itself, bound to consciousness by pain. I make efforts to find anything appealing to grasp and use it as an anchor point to pull myself back. Other times I feel overwhelmed and struggle to identify what I think or feel. The deluge of voices and feelings makes accomplishing anything substantial difficult as I spend a great deal of conscious time and energy trying to manage myself, and ultimately find the best course of action is non-action. Doing nothing prevents me from making anything worse, a lesson learned the hard way over time.
The see-saw of hollow and panic is exhausting and crippling. If there aren’t periods of rest and productivity, I begin to become anxious and feel guilty. These last several weeks are one such period. I can look in the mirror and chalk part of it up to extraordinary physical pain levels and another part of it up to election anxiety, but I wholly dislike making excuses. I have still been trying to be productive in the creative sphere, even if at a reduced capacity. I sit with myself and feel the tears flow freely down my face. However, I can’t pinpoint why, and that is a spiral I have to recognize and not allow myself to travel down.
I often feel I should be doing more. Even writing the word ‘should’ makes me wince. The ‘should’ trap is infinite, and I don’t know how to escape from it. I should be doing this; I should be more of that. The periods in time wherein I have brief moments of acceptance and tranquility are frustrated by the constant stepping in the ‘should’ traps. The only one making more demands of myself is me, but I cannot recall when I have been happy with myself.
The past is a blur of intermingled tragedies and fleeting human moments struggling against dark backdrops while we hold out hope for a brighter future against clear evidence of a painful present. We learn the harsh truths that we are the cause of all of the world’s problems, and we suffer watching people hurt one another with intent. I try to let go of the weight of the world, to find an individual peace while the profiteers of hate and their willing minions burn the world we work so hard to create. The lines between countries and cultures are arbitrary. We are people who, at our core, want the same things. Our potential is far from being achieved, but we are the burden placed on our shoulders.
People are so scared; they are pumped full of fear every day. It’s sad to live in a world wherein wanting monsters to be monsters, not people, is a radical idea. It’s sad to live in a world wherein wanting love to be the common currency, not fear, is a revolutionary idea. It’s sad to live in a world wherein people feel they need to live vicariously through fiction because life comes up short. We have unlocked many secrets of the universe! We can create a planet that functions for the masses, or is that too much to ask?
COVID-19 has brought to the forefront weaknesses in our society’s fabric that has been simmering for ages. While many of us have are casualties of the fight bending the long arc towards justice, there exist plenty of people still who at least pretend to be blind to the problems within and all around them. The veil has been lifted; our racism, religion and anti-intellectualism, sexism, xenophobia, (and more) problems aren’t fringe issues afflicting only crazy uncles at family gatherings. These problems have a substantial core of people who subscribe to them. Hate has a home, and hate doesn’t have to hide.
Through the red haze of hatred, people are surviving and accomplishing goals. I feel like I am floundering at the edge of failure, struggling to maintain a semblance of serenity. When one looks beyond the ticker headlines of the day, there are so many things for which to cheer. Whether we look at scientific advancements or people being everyday heroes and reminding us not all hope is lost, we can cheer. Yet, I cannot seem to shake consistent feelings of impending doom and regret every mistake I’ve ever made. Whenever I carve out a place of peace for myself, it doesn’t take long for all of what I carved out to rush back in again. At this point, if peace did come, I think I would be afraid, the proverbial waiting for the shoe to drop as it were. I hope I don’t sabotage myself when the day comes when the tears are of joy instead of everything but joy, as they are now. We have overcome many trials in our evolution. I would like to have hope we can be better; I would like to have hope I can be better.