Crushed
by
July 19, 2007
An update: Life
continues to be lived and the attendant tragedies and triumphs continue
apace. I cannot help but be bewildered
by the contrast in my work and personal life:
at work, I blossom. Even in the
midst of this mire, I feel I am contributing and I am constantly stimulated by
the day’s events. I get to put my
armour on and I take no prisoners. I
live for the battle.
But once work is over and I get home, everything
changes. It goes from light speed to
zero the minute I cross the threshold, and although I’m not sure, I think I
find comfort in this. I think it’s just that I run out of steam -- I exert
so much of myself in my 9 to 5 that there is little left for the hours I have
left and all I can do is decompress in the most benign fashion possible -- it
beats having grand mals, though they, annoyingly, continue. (My theory -- and I’m sticking to it -- too
many brains.)
I fear that I live all my life out loud and in the quiet
moments, I do not exist -- like someone
has forgotten to colour me in. It’s
not a bad fate in the aggregate -- but I’m beginning to feel like a machine
constructed for a particular purpose, a machine that has no function when
exhaling. That all that happens between
the end of work and the beginning of work is the routine maintenance the
ensures continued performance at the start of the next day.
And at 4 a.m. every day, I get up, drink gallons of
coffee, read law and listen to the Smashing Pumpkins at full volume.
Do I regret this?
No. It is a
benediction.
Do I think my life is wasted?
No. I am blessed.
Do I feel cheated?
Strangely: no.
Do I need more?
Apparently not.
Am I significant?
No. That concept
is laughable.
Does anybody care?
No. People don’t
even remember my name.
Am I making a difference?
Apparently not.
Clearly not.
But here’s the epiphany:
I have never been so at home in my own head or my own skin -- never so
sure of my own purpose than I am right this minute.
The realization that it is likely that the next man to
put his hands on my body will in all likelihood be a coroner doesn’t disturb
me. Before (according to my best
friend Helen) men shunned me because I was “scary”. Now I can apparently turn them to stone at a glance -- but you
know what? It doesn’t bother me. I am entire and complete in my own
head.
It is freeing on such a visceral level. I feel so tuned in and so apart, and maybe
that’s what freedom is.
I will have one mistress here and no master.
As for the rest of it, for the moments in between, I’m
making it up as I go along.
It feels incidental.
I cannot allow myself to think about what I’ve
relinquished to get here. That part is
unbearable.
I’m told that life exists in those moments when everyone
else is drawing breath -- where connection, family, vulnerability, minutiae
have dominion-- and maybe that’s true for people who define life in those
terms.
I’m told I’m too intense, isolated, difficult, dogmatic,
strident, too resolute. Too weird.
But amidst these inconvenient truths, I’m finding
myself.
My friend (the honest man I’ve referenced in previous
columns), tells me that I’m kidding myself: that I hate being single and that
this warrior persona is simply one of my masks. (And how I resent him for seeing so clearly, how glad I am that
he is but a footnote in my life.)
Although I respect his opinion, this time I think he’s
wrong, despite his detached and benevolent observations.
(And oh, how I scare him too. He has the luxury of seeing me from a distance: close scrutiny
would overwhelm him. But his honesty
soothes me, and there is so little else that consoles me these days. I attach no particular importance to it: I
can’t afford to. I wind myself up these
nights only in what I remember of the day, the ubiquitous tumbleweeds of cat
fur, and the consoling words of a kind friend.
It more than suffices.)
And for me, at this moment, in this life: I’m home.
This is me.
Life is good and richly lived besides.
I’ve never been happier.
Till next time,
Morrigan
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