Lying fallow

I'm writing out of a very dark place right now, so if that's not something you need or want to read, I'd suggest stopping now.  I wouldn't blame you in the slightest.

It's been maybe the most emotional weekend of my life, in a variety of different ways that I'm not sure how to express.  I'm falling behind on all the things that I need to do, all the things I have to do, and it's pouring rain out there and in my heart I have nothing at all left to give. 

I want so desperately to have a plan of action, a checklist that I can complete and feel good about and once it's done and properly checked off with the right color of ink then things are going to be back to okay.  But no matter how much time I invest in putting this plan together, I can't bring myself to start on the simplest item on the list. 

I'm not exercising.  I'm not sleeping.  I'm not eating well.  My house is a mess.  My life is a mess.  I'm not telling you this because I want sympathy--in fact, that's the opposite of what I want--I just need to get things out of my head and then maybe they'll be gone?  Like, for good?  And there'll be room in there for the stuff that needs to be done because right now there's just so much sadness in there that it overshadows everything.

No matter how many people remind me that I'm doing okay, I am afraid that I'm not.  I dream vivid dreams of my friends and loved ones leaving me or hating me or wrecking their cars (last night's dream) because I was talking to them and I offer to pay for the damage but my credit card is denied. 

Driving to work this morning in the rain I was reminded of the concept of fields lying fallow.  Land that is sucked dry of nutrients isn't fertile.  It's no good to anyone.  So the farmers let the fields go unfarmed for a period of time, to let them get their juju back (I don't know anything about botany.  Juju seems appropriate.) until they're ready to be farmed again.  This is how I feel.  I'm all out of things to give.  I need to go somewhere where no one needs or wants anything from me.  I need to lie fallow.  My big fear is that once I'm in that place, I'll be forgotten.  Or, maybe even scarier, that I will realize that I don't want to give anything anymore.  It's only fallow when there's intent to rejuvenate, to come back stronger than you were.  If you don't plan to come back, it's not fallow--it's forgotten. 

I look in the mirror every morning and say to myself, "I am strong. I can do this. I am strong. I can do this."  But the words feel empty and meaningless in the face of your little girl crying on her bedroom floor and begging you to put her family back together; the tear streaked faces on TV that I can't bear to look at anymore, can't even read the names; the emails asking me for this thing or that thing and I just file them away in folders with all the other things I am leaving undone.  Words don't come easily to me here.  I'm writing this because I know I need to.  I don't want anyone else to read it, but that's just my self-preservation kicking in.  The truth is the truth, and me managing all your impressions of who I am has gotten me to this place and let's be frank, it's not the place I particularly want to be. 

C has been on a Finding Nemo kick this weekend and during one of her multiple viewings, I was struck by the scene where Dory and Marlin are facing the giant trench.  It looks scary and awful and Dory knows that she has been told that even though it's frightening, it's safer to go through the trench than around it.  But she can't remember it, of course, and this makes no sense to Marlin, and he convinces her that they need to go around it and then of course they all get stung by jellyfish and are barely rescued by the stoner sea turtles.  So I'm going through the trench instead of around it, I guess.  And it's just as scary and awful as it looks.  But I keep swimming, because it's all I know to do, and I will come out the other side without getting wounded too deeply for me to recover.  I have to.