Rumplestiltskin vs. Dragonflies - Just Recharge

By débora Ewing
Taking a selfie with Frank Zappa
"...I think I just want to sleep for a year or two to get my energy back," says my friend Earl.

I totally get that. Since moving to Annandale, since divorcing, that's pretty much what I've been doing. It's more difficult than I thought, recharging, but I'm getting the hang of it. There are still bouts of anger and frustration over time wasted, and mourning over that which was lost and will probably be unrecoverable. I'm sure you know this one.

Fresh starts aren't really fresh, and they aren't really starts, either - more like picking up a knitting project and trying to remember where you wanted to go with it. Remembering how to knit, even.  Deciding that some of those dropped stitches can just stay dropped and unravel later, because I'm old and no longer care about the competition.

Let there be holes in my armor. I don't believe anything can kill me any more.

One of the books I'm currently not-writing is the story of my life when it was the most awesome. It's damned difficult to revisit those times - memoir-writing feels very real while you're doing it - only to put them to sleep again. And here in my resting-state I entertain the processes it would take to do the cool things again. The math makes me tired, and I go back to recharging. I've learned to listen to my body, and to believe in homeostasis. It's a damned lot of work transforming, but if a dragonfly can shed his skin and take off, then so can I. I'll just rest here a bit longer.

As a different friend said, "In farming there is always next year."

Comments

  1. MariWednesday, 14 February, 2018

    The first time I divorced I was in the middle of a career selling encyclopedias door to door. I moved into a singles apartment complex and slept in a lawn chair for months, leaving my front door unlocked daring disaster to cross its threshold. After all, I knocked on strange doors for a living, hundreds each evening, had been threatened by apprehensive homeowners with a sidearm twice, and was no longer afraid. My friends were druggies who danced at the apartment clubhouse to groups like Mother's Finest brought in for our entertainment and who went paranoid and buried their stash under a tree in the middle of the night, then ran around bewailing their loss when they couldn't remember which tree later. I was in shape, hyper, and would take anything anyone passed on to me in attempts to calm me down when my energy level was more than bystanders could endure. I live my entire adolescence at age 25, heard ALL of the music for the first time everyone had been listening to since they were 15, and loved life. It was fun, lasted a year, and then I resumed adulthood.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. débora EwingWednesday, 14 February, 2018

      Mari, that sounds like the year I was 35 in California. I'll have some stories about that era...;)

      Delete
  2. JudySLWednesday, 14 February, 2018

    "Fresh starts aren't really fresh, and they aren't really starts, either..." - and "...because I'm old and no longer care about the competition." - I get it, and I agree! Glad I found your blog....

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. débora EwingWednesday, 14 February, 2018

      Thank you, ma'am! "they aren't really starts" is one of those moments when I felt really smart for noticing something that's been staring me in the face my whole life. I can often do that for other people, but rarely for myself, so...cool :D

      Delete

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