is everybody feeling as much as I am?
give somebody a compliment and words of encouragement this week!
She feels the absence of his touch, now that he’s away. The hand on her arm is a phantom of the past. A sense memory. She wonders, can he feel her too?
I drank a passion fruit kombucha in the sunny backyard today. Sprawled out on a picnic blanket and pillows. I didn’t mean to finish reading A Pale View of Hills, but I did in three hours. The kombucha is bright orange and tastes like a yeasty beer on vacation.
I think yesterday was the highpoint of my energy this month, full of laughter and physical activity, which means I had a good excuse to cry this morning. I’ve been doing well, so I fear I will come apart.
My anxiety used to take the form of intrusive thoughts, sometimes obsessive thoughts repeating themselves.
Now that I’ve managed to appear normal in my own home, tidy and clean, for several weeks straight, and continue to write, my anxiety is signaling to me the danger of control slipping away, the way it slips so easily.
Tomorrow, I should be careful. Next week, I’ll be in pain again. Now is the time to show yourself your kind heart.
She wakes up before dawn and watches him sleep. His face is serene, but his chest rises and falls with heaviness. What is he dreaming of behind those closed eyes?
The mothers and daughters in A Pale View of Hills don’t communicate well. They have trouble explaining themselves. They live in different realities of thinking which prevents them from understanding each other. The truth of it muddles your brain.
The other day, I walked into my sister’s closet in her apartment. Her clothes smelled like her. Her shoes were lined up in a row, some with heels and some without. Her style was feminine and comfortable. A pair of shoes were off-kilter like she’d put them there after a long day of walking around. Pinned to the wall was a whiteboard with her handwriting scrawled on it, with important things to remember about her life and her health. I stood there pretending to be her for a moment. My arm lifted in the air to write on the whiteboard.
Everybody is living these intensely emotional lives. Everybody is the center of the universe. I don’t know, something about this hurts me. Imagine then, how many people are in pain? Imagine how many people are in love?
When you’re a teenager, you feel alone. Every experience is new. It’s hard to imagine your emotions are being repeated within others 7 billion times. Then this thinking sticks for awhile, in your early 20’s, the world is so much bigger than you. But at some point along the way you realize, your parents are regular people and your teachers get drunk at bars.
I wonder, is everybody feeling as much as I am? How can that be possible? If so then why is the world still spinning? Why are we not spontaneously combusting?
I often feel like there’s an empathy threshold, where understanding becomes murky, because we can never truly live each other’s lives. Meaning: communication always breaks down between people at some point.
I went to sleep wondering if anybody in the world truly understands me. How do I explain myself better?
In A Pale View of Hills, true intimacy and acceptance feels impossible, but then again the mother and daughter still come back to each other, out of duty or love, you’re not sure, but at least it’s meaningful.
There is power in caring for other people even if you don’t understand what they’re going through.
He embraces her before they part ways again. He tells her she is strong. Somehow, he knows she needs to hear it.
Reading this made me feel seen. I feel too much and to know that someone in another corner of the world feels the same is reassuring. Loved what you have written!!
From the kombucha to the off-kilter shoes to the unconditional care, this is so beautiful!!