Pushing Play2

"It's normal.  Totally normal.  Like me, you are passionate about your job and Monday to Friday, working, has been the framework that's defined you.  And now it is gone, while you are off work, doing this other work, this really really important work, on you.  Weekends and weekdays don't hold the same meaning.  It can feel really scary...you feel out of control.  I use a big print calendar on my wall to help with that sense of floating around.  It helps, some."

She looked at me skeptically.  "Yeah, well it makes me feel like I have become stupid. Sometimes I feel like everything is on pause and then fast forward....."

"I feel that way too.  One of my therapists in big on mindfulness, and she has helped me understand how my biggest challenge is accepting how things are--right now, today---life on play so to speak.  I can't rewind and fix the past, I can't fast forward through all this hard stuff I need to go through to get well, and by pressing pause....I am missing out on everything."

M kicked at a rock with her foot.  "Missing out sounds fine by me." 

"It does sound peaceful doesn't it. Taking a break?  I get that.  This is messy shit...and it's ok to pause in it for a while.  But at some point, it's going to get uncomfortable, and smelly and boring on pause."

"But the whole thing is messy!  I don't want it to be messy!"

"Ok right. No one likes mess. Last year around this time, I was running around like crazy starting four or five projects a day.  Wandering from cleaning out the pantry, to painting the deck, to cooking dinner and then just walking out of the house to read on the back deck for two hours, only to come in and see three unfinished projects and then feeling like a loser for not even remembering to finish them .  It was a mess!"

Her shoulders fell. "I'm doing that too. I feel so stupid."

"See though, you can't rewind and stop it from happening.  You also can't skip past the mess to where it is all cleaned up.  Now you can stick with pause---I've done that---but then nothing changes.  The mess is still there.  So the only choice I have left, really, is to press play and practice living."

"Practice sounds fake.  I am too exhausted to practice living," she started back along the path.

"Ok wait.  Doctors practice medicine.  Lawyers practice law.  Lord knows they don't do those things perfectly.  All we can do is watch it play out in front of it and live our role, practicing all the things you are learning about how to be good to yourself."

"I guess."

"We're all here with you. Practicing too."