January 17, 2020: Out of Control
Song: “Out of Control” by Oingo Boingo from Best O’Boingo
(from wikipedia)
The feeling of falling while standing on solid ground is one hell of a thing.
The sensation of losing your grip when no mortal danger would demand you be searching for a handhold can be confusing.
The rush of blood to your face. The triphammer quick beat of your heart. The cold sick sweat beading on your skin.
There is the kind of spiral that feels like life, like joy, like thrill incarnate. Where that chaotic energy is a source of happiness, evidence of memories worth holding onto. Of love. Of friendship. Of the kind of risk that pay offs even if things don’t go exactly according to plans.
But those fade with time, it seems. They occur less. Their pulse pounding impact dulled by experience and cynicism.
The other kind…they seem unimpacted by the passage of time, by the increase in responsibility. They strike hard and fast. Or they encircle you and tighten, slow and all consuming. They scream of attention or close down everything else around you til only they exist.
Figuring out which side is up, left, or right become imperative and yet almost impossible. The simplest of tasks become like mountains. How can you call that one person when your dishes are dirty? How can you clean your dishes when the bed isn’t made? How can you make the bed when you still have to go through your old magazines? Everything needs to be done and yet none of it seems right to start until everything else is finished. How can you start when every place to start is wrong?
There are those who can help, of course. Friends. Family. But reaching out to them when you are such a mess, so broken, so screwed up, so disorganized…it feels impossible. How can you have fun with your friend when your world is caving in? How can you see your cousin when your marriage is teetering on destruction?
None of it is real, of course. Not really real. You know that. But it feels real. And if it feels real, how can it not be real? Does it matter it isn’t real when it feels like it and that feeling blots out all other points of view? Feelings aren’t facts but the fact is you feel it. And if you feel it and the feeling fills your world, what other facts can get through?
It’ll break. It always does. It’ll recede and perhaps be gone so long you’ll almost forget what it was like. But until it breaks, where is the refuge? Where is the safe place? What will be the toll? How much of your life will be decimated in its wake? How much will you have to pick up and fix? Who won’t let you apologize this time? Who will say it is too much and walk away?