An Encounter with Loneliness

I threw up my life on Sunday. Provoked by an overconsumption of vodka tonics on Saturday night, my body decided nothing was staying in. Shivering, I made a bed of bath mats on the bathroom floor, surrounded myself with towels, and lay next to my new friend: the toilet bowl. And there it went, in approximately 12 minute intervals: all the poison my digestive system protectively rejected.

As I lay there, in a sort of delusional state, weak and disgusted with myself, I felt not only the painful pangs of "I hate you right now" from my stomach, but also a feeling I'd not seen so close to the surface in a long time: I felt incredibly lonely. As though with every purge I also lost my knowledge of nurturing and belonging, I seemed to grow increasingly emptier. There's nothing inside me, was the recurring thought. I suddenly had an urge for evidence of every lesson I'd ever learned that had made me capable of providing myself with love and care. I wanted to know that "what doesn't kill you makes you stronger" existed inside me, as a tangible idea that I had proved throughout my life. I wanted to know that rejection, pain, abandonment, and loss had created muscles in my body and provided me with resources that I could rely on for survival.

What I felt instead was a hollowness, an endless void. There was no physical evidence of the things I had overcome and the lessons I had learned. Any acquired strength or courage had left no imprint. The depths of my stomach had been evacuated, and with it went all my adult-like knowledge that everything would be okay.

I didn't have much time to dwell on this, as I eventually fell into a deep sleep, and by the time I woke up, I was the same as I had always been, except my stomach was flatter and my complexion paler. I felt weak, yes, but my body knew how to go through the motions of taking care of myself. I could get up, shower, change, eat something bland, drink water, and lie back down again. I could tell myself, everything is going to be okay.

But I can not shake that for those couple of hours, exhausted of my defenses, I felt an emptiness so deep it paralyzed me. My knowledge of the world, of myself, and of my life, had somehow abandoned me. The inner mother, the adult-within-the-child, the wiser voice; they were all gone. I was alone.

Was it real, I wonder? Was that loneliness the essence of humanity, and all the rest is just a sham to help us survive? Or do we really have souls, a higher Self, a sense of belonging to a bigger picture?

At the end of the day, are we just alone, or is there really something at our core that never leaves us?

Day Off from My Brain/ The Hang-Over

Today I woke up and felt old. Well, let's be clear about the facts- I was hung over, extremely hung over, from a really fun night out with friends, where I drank more than I'm used to drinking. So I woke up today, head exploding and stomach turning, and as I nursed my evil hang-over, I thought, "Golly moses, I used to drink much more in college, and then get up and go to class at 9am looking like a super-model. Right now I can't imagine leaving my bed before 4pm and even then I'll still look like a drowned rat. I think this means I'm getting old."

So I went through the rituals of dealing with hang-overs: drank a gallon of water, took four tylenols, took a 20 minute shower, stuck my head in the freezer, had a fried chicken sandwich, and drank a cup of coffee the size of my head, the whole time thinking, "I will never drink again. Until I forget why I said that."

And as the day went on and I could literally think of nothing but how miserable I felt, things that I care about and think of every day became completely unimportant due to my inability to do them. I didn't avoid carbohydrates, I didn't go to the gym, I didn't go to yoga, I didn't meditate, I didn't do my crossword puzzle, I didn't read a single thing (didn't even want to read subtitles on a foreign movie), I didn't take out the trash, I didn't fold the clothes I wore the previous day, I didn't make my bed, I didn't look in the mirror and tell myself that I am beautiful and powerful, I didn't try to not think of any ex's (or to not think any negative thoughts in general, for that matter), I didn't de-clutter my inbox, I didn't check the mail, I didn't write in my journal, and I didn't even comb my hair. I probably wouldn't have even brushed my teeth if the action weren't so automatic for me. All these things that I "have to do" every day because they essentially make me feel better about myself, my space, and my life were completely ignored today. It's like I got a day off from putting in any effort towards expanding my happiness and well-being. All I wanted was to replace my brain with ice. And you know what? It was kind of a relief.

As it turns out, I put a lot of my energy, every day, into "feeling good". Into keeping the rhythm of my life the way I think I want it. Into making myself and my home look good and welcoming. I didn't even realize that it was all actually quite draining, and getting a day off from all of it could feel like such a relief.

Usually when I'm in some kind of pain I try to breathe through it, feel it but not get overwhelmed by it, not get sucked into negative thoughts and actions, and find a way to see some light in every situation. But when it's as overpowering as my hang-over was today, it just takes too much effort to try to see the good in it and feel better. I just wanted to hang out with how bad I felt and lay there feeling sorry for myself. And that's what I did.

I found that it was actually very relaxing to just feel like crap and not try to change a damn thing about it. By the end of the day, I feel like I got a break from my own brain, and every one needs that sometimes. My brain, my body, and I work so hard to keep me balanced and happy, it actually seems a little bit unnatural now that I can contrast it to a day of the complete opposite. Maybe I don't need to work so hard on myself. Maybe I can give myself a break, not monitor every thought and action, every day.

Positive energy is a powerful thing, and I'm starting to suspect it can do a lot of the work on its own- it doesn't need me to try so hard all the time to turn everything into something good. Even this blog post is the perfect example. I started writing it thinking, I'm not gonna try to put a positive or conclusive spin on anything, it's my day off from my brain, I can just write about how miserable my day was and how different it felt from every other day. And now, as I finish writing it, it turned out to have a positive and conclusive feel to it anyway. I think it's because positive energy, like anything else, only needs us to meet it half-way. It travels the other half of the way on its own. I don't need to take the whole trip on myself. Just being open for a shift in consciousness can be enough to welcome growth and insight into my life. Essentially, I don't have to try so hard to be happy.

What a relief.

Me this morning, feeling like death.