Just Write {58}

I’ve probably had too much coffee.

I was walking around the bedroom, our bedroom, stepping over dirty clothes and wondering why I went in there. I decided to go down and switch the laundry because the laundry on the floor reminded me. I did that, but I forgot to take the laundry from the floor with me.

There’s an anxious pit in my stomach and I’ve never known life without that. Sometimes I remember to stop and ask it why it’s there and much of the time there’s no reason. It just is. Most of the time, I forget about it because it’s all I know. I don’t know what peaceful insides feel like. Please don’t tell me to meditate or pray or take breaks or think differently. I know and do those things, sometimes, and I don’t know, it’s hard to figure and then get a part of yourself out while the days and world are spinning so fast.

It goes away, I notice, for just a second here and there, like when I look at my sleeping children or watch the chickens pecking and scratching. I always notice that it’s gone because it feels so different and then the noticing makes it come back. I’m sure that’s ironic or something.

Last night, I rocked Elsie and that’s getting so short. She points at her crib within a couple of minutes, wanting to get in it for the night. It’s amazing, how far we’ve come. Now I want to rock her longer. I told myself to just sit in the quiet with her and hold her close in these last times and to stay aware of my thoughts. To watch them. To pay attention to what I think, to keep it in check. Then I realized that I do that all the time. It’s part of the pit in my stomach, always thinking about my thinking. So aware. So observant.

Oh look at how fast I change the subject, I think, about my thinking. Oh look at how many things I can think about in less than a minute. I can’t stay on task. So I thought about how much healing I still need and wondered why I don’t just work through some of the things that still sit around in inside me like monsters in the dark. I don’t even know if all of them are real anymore, but there I was trying to think about them because I figure it has to hurt but probably less then avoiding them for too long. Then my mind wandered and Elsie started to point to the crib and I started to think about what I needed to do before going to bed, for the next day. My thoughts are like me, walking around the house and into a room, stepping over the dirty laundry and leaving it there.

Not for good, just for now. To go do something else.

::::

This is the 58th installment of Just Write, an exercise in free writing your ordinary and extraordinary moments. {Please see the details here.} I would love to read your freely written words so join me and link up below. You can add the url of your post at any time. Just be sure it’s a link to your Just Write post, not to your main page, and please don’t link to posts that are not written in the spirit of capturing moments–like lists or sponsored posts. Then please link back to this post in your post so people know where to go if they’d like to join in. (Any links not following those two guidelines will be deleted.)

Also. Please take a moment to visit someone else who has linked up! It’s a really good way to meet new writers and get inspired by the meaning behind their moments. Word? Thank you!