Girl, interrupted?

I have been an emotional and physical mess lately. While desiring progress in my home repairs and preparations, I seem to be unconsciously working through some personal repairs and preparations, as well. In fact, the latter seems to be making more active progress than the former. While the nightmares of last week have gone (for now), they have been replaced with more vivid dreaming. These are not especially good nor especially bad dreams, but they are many in number and very involved, and they are keeping me from receiving any real rest when I sleep. I am waking up more exhausted each morning than I was when I welcomed sleep the night before. I am also greeting each morning with such stiffness and tension throughout my body as makes it very uncomfortable to set myself upright. In addition to my sleeping complaints, I have been experiencing some powerful and inexplicable mood shifts during my waking hours. By inexplicable, I mean that these emotional outbursts come on suddenly and strongly and seem to have no attachments to any current circumstance. For instance, yesterday, while doing some repair work with my father, I experienced a sudden surge of foul and prolific anger. there was no logical connection to this outburst with relation to our work. And my father had been only kind and generous in his help. But I could not easily contain this anger, so I had to end our work early and take him home. Fortunately, I was able to explain the strange circumstances to my dad so he understood (if even only a little) what was happening. But it only made me feel worse that I could have possibly injured his feelings, and that our work - and time together - was cut short because of my reckless emotional state.

My body is sore. I am tired - inside and out. It is getting more and more difficult to find center. I do not know how to navigate these experiences. I feel so very ill equipped to understand fully what is happening. I have glimpses of insight: I believe this taking apart of my home and the life I’ve built 'til now is releasing old and buried injuries and accomplishments that never had their due expression. But I confess that I don’t know how to allow their release in such a way that they do not break me or harm those around me.

I do not mean to put a negative shadow on these experiences. I believe they are healthy and a necessary shedding of the old to make room for the new. in general, I feel quite happy and excited about the new journey for which I’m preparing. I suppose I just forget that what I’m doing is bigger than simply changing my living arrangements - more, I’m changing my life as I’ve ever known it. I am actually trying to create a life I’ve long dreamed about living. I am risking the comforts of the familiar and safe and stepping into the great unknown. I am releasing my grip on conventionality. I have never felt myself to be conventional, yet I realize that I have most always acted in conventional ways. I must remember that with the breaking of convention comes the responsibilities of facing those fears inherent with unknown paths.

So, still, I struggle to understand all that is unfolding before and within me. Still, I struggle with my impatience to have it all happen now and to have it happen easily and without any real effort on my part. But, as everyone knows, all experiences and rewards of true consequence can only be gained by giving of oneself to something greater. So, I will continue to give as gracefully as I am able in the hopes that I will be rewarded for having done so.