Life: As a Conveyer Belt...

I am kinda in it right now.  My dad is out of his mind.  My kids are off living their lives (which is a good thing but it is also hard after almost 20 years of daily mothering, to quite suddenly not to be needed), work is hard, my neck is fucked and painful, I am tired, and I have absolutely no bandwidth for dating or men or anything.  It is days like this where I am pretty sure I am totally going to die alone with my cats...

I don’t mean this to be full of self pity, but there it is anyway.  I feel overwhelmed by my life and its relentless pace of moving me forward.  Right now, it feels like I would like to sit a few rounds out but I can’t because life is this constantly forward moving process and you can’t stop it to catch your breath.

I was thinking this morning that life has always felt like this rather slow moving conveyer belt.  And you are tied to it.  Like shackled to this belt and you pass through these doors into new vistas and rooms of your life.  And you have this leash that lashes you to the belt and you can get off and walk around in whatever area you find yourself in but you are always going to have to keep up with the belt.  The more time you spend dawdling, the faster you have to run to keep up with all the things that are on the conveyer belt. And you always have to get back on...

What am I even talking about?

Ok, I am going to try to explain...

It is like when you are in a new relationship.  The conveyer belt kicks wide new doors and there you find yourself in this new place with this new person and you are super stoked to be with them, and them with you.  All you want to do is them (quite literally).  And so for a period of time, you do.  You are with them 24/7 and if you aren’t in each other’s presence, you are thinking about being in their presence, making plans to be in their presence or do something with them (or to them).

Now you can get off the proverbial belt and move around with this other person, but your life is still moving along without you.  Bills are not getting paid, laundry not getting done, work piling up, phone calls needing to be returned.  Your full life is still progressing while you are off having the time of your life with what’s his name.

Eventually, the love bubble bursts (sometimes quite literally) and you are forced to run to catch up to your life already in motion.  And as you jump back on the conveyer belt, you realize a shitshow happened while you were having such a great time with, well, whomever.  Now you have to play catch up.  Tend to all the things that need and require your attention on a daily basis that you have let slide...

The longer you have spent off the belt, the more work you have to do when you get back on.

And it is easy to reach the conclusion that time off the belt is the goal.  So much more enjoyable than time on the belt where you are just this somewhat maniacal person doing things all the time. And mostly not the fun things, the life sustaining things which are never the goal.  They play a major, minor role and they will eat you alive if you leave them unattended long enough.  Bury you in a mass of unattended life circumstances.

I know it will all work out.  It always does.  Despite my feelings and fears to the contrary.  The stuff gets done, the hard events pass and it is relatively calm on the conveyer belt.  And it stays that way until you think you are going to die of boredom or something comes along that gives you a good reason to jump off the fucking belt and start the whole endeavor once again.

I guess right now I feel like I am on the belt and it keeps visiting areas I don’t really like all that much.  And I would love to find a distraction to jump off into.  But I know there is so much shit that is going to pile up on the belt while I entertain myself that the dalliance isn’t worth the effort.  I just don’t have the energy for a frolic and detour right now.

But I want to.

Life is just lifey right now.  Nothing is horribly wrong but there are areas of my life that are hard at the moment.  Things that require my attention and engagement that are unfun.  Things that I would rather not have to deal with, even as I understand I am privileged to have these issues to begin with, it doesn’t really make it any easier.

And when I get to places like this in my life, I struggle to do it all alone.  I have support and help but I do not have a partner to curl into at night, rest my head on his chest and cry.  I have a cat or two and that is better than nothing, but it is times like this where I feel acutely alone.  And to some degree there is comfort in the aloneness.  I do not have to worry about someone else’s feelings or thoughts.  I can do what I feel is best without restriction or commentary.  And there is a great freedom in that.  But also, I am in it solo and it is a different kind of hard.

I am not lonely most of the time.  Holidays and hard times where I am forced to move forward while having too much to do and a lot of heavy emotional lifting.  I am lucky.  I know this.  I am alone a lot and that is by choice.  But I would be a liar if I didn’t own that times like this, where things are hard emotionally, that I wish I had someone to snuggle up to at night and feel safe, cared for and adored. Someone who wants to make my life easier, if even for just a little while.

It will pass.  I know it will because it always has.  But I promised to tell the truth and this is my truth today.  I am lonely.  I feel my aloneness acutely.  And while I am not going to do anything to change it, I do have to own the hardness of it currently.  Jumping off the belt now will only compound the problem.  Making me feel worse, not better.

It is times like this where I really understand that how I ended up here in this place where I am so self sufficient was traumatic response.  I created the alone because I had to, not because I wanted to.  And today, that just feels like a hard, bad decision.  I know this too shall pass.  The hard things will move forward and, perhaps, may get worse.  I have friends to lean on and I am grateful for that.  I have family also which is wonderful.  But today I feel quite solitary on my life conveyer belt.  Just moving through the lives of others, solo.  Seeing, possibly touching, but then always moving on...sans partnership.

I know this is how I wanted it. But it doesn’t make it any easier to live with just because it was my choice.  Sometimes I am a stupid choice maker.  And even while I can own that, I know that I really never had another choice, not really.

So there you have it.  Today is hard.  I feel depleted and depressed.  And I know of nothing else to do in times like this than to get back on the fucking belt, or be dragged.  And getting dragged is not a good time for me, so I hop back on and will attend to whatever needs to be attended to.

Again, still...