Cinematographers and photographers alike have deemed the time when the sun is setting and casts a blush-orange glow on everything "The Magic Hour." The lighting is perfect for filming and photos, the shadows golden and all things slightly fuzzy--a natural "retouching" by the sun.
This is the hour when I find my mind wandering. About how I'm leaving the apartment in which I wanted my ex and I to grow as a family. About dreaming about things that won't ever happen here now. Or at all. About giving away nearly all my stupid fucking possessions because they don't matter. About how material things weigh us down and consume our time when we should be helping and celebrating each other more.
I love the fucking light in this apartment.
Between where I thought my life would be, where it is, where I want it to go, how happy I am, how alone I feel, how supported I feel, how grateful I am, and ending usually on just how FUCKING alive I am.
Because every day I wake up, I am given a chance to DO something awesome. And awesome things take time. Baby building blocks of everything we've seen, done, everywhere we've been, every PERSON we've been...all leading up to turning points, riding the waves up and down that are thrown at us. Or lying on the shores in the sand, and feeling each wave pass over, creeping or tsunami.
Each wrench in the wheels, each crippling wave that knocks us off our feet, still doesn't diminish our ability to stand back up.
And I always do that.
But my ankles are weak. I'm getting weary.
I'm 34 and I've seen no fewer than 4 suicidal major depressive episodes. Meds, therapy, support networks, copays, doctors, psychologists, psychiatrists, articles about the pros/cons of all coping mechanisms. Drinking, drugs, sex, self-hurt, TV, exercise, food, shopping, talking, group therapy, all the ways we push things down, we share, we heal. Read, watch, listen, learn, form an opinion, listen to the other side, flip it over, open up, readjust, reconsider, learn.
FUCK, MAN.
I have SO. MUCH. PRIVILEGE. and even I'm exhausted. I have insurance, and come from a middle class, and I'm a white woman with a Masters. I make enough money to get by. I have great friends and family.
But no companion anymore. And since I was little, I've ALWAYS put the emphasis on the approval of another person, a partner, and wanting a family.
Maybe we find ways to complain because our brains feel locked inside the reality that we are born, will live, and will die on this planet. Because we don't know for sure what is before or after consciousness. Maybe that's just me.
The Meaning of ItAll. Everyone makes up one's mind over the course of one's lifetime. Feast or famine. Fight, flight, or freeze. Make pretty things. Make money. Make babies. Make chaos. Make people listen. Make people move. Make people believe you. Make them believe in magic. Make them drink the KoolAid. Make believe. Make up your own fantasy. Make fantasy a reality.
So back to this Magic Hour. I've always been in love with the way the sun hits things, its shadows, its sunset, and, on the rare occasion I catch it, its sunrise. So I can't help but get frozen by the way the sun floods my back window in my Chicago apartment. On the weekends when I attempt to apply to jobs, find apartments, finish taxes, FUCKING START PACKING, do anything other than watch TV and eat (no seriously), I am frozen by the sun and all these goddamn thoughts I have.
Namely because this is the second time I'm leaving a city after a breakup to a man I thought I'd marry. (Note: in 15 years, there's been two.) Each so drastically different. Both times, I felt like it was unfinished. I feel like I have to venture west to figure things out. To figure ME out.
Shadows hide the ugly. Illuminate the sky.
I know myself. I know who I am and who I am not. I am learning to be okay with that, to accept it, and to be proud and secure in that.
But still I feel unfulfilled. I know what I want. I just don't know how to get it. I guess I need to learn to want what I have. Or to un-learn to want.
When I was 29, I finally resolved that the greatest sadness I could experience would be to wait for someone to share my life with. Then I had a relationship that reversed that.
These edges of want--to have and give and lose and gain--have been sharpened and smoothed hundreds of times. How sharp does this knife need to be?
No comments:
Post a Comment