Tuesday, September 15, 2015

Catch You On the Flip Side

I have been in this space long enough to finally identify what's happening to me. I am contracting. I am the opposite of expanding. I am the inward breath of a lung. The down flutter of the deeply colored butterfly wings I spy attached to the insects sipping nectar from the Zinnias out my window. I am the suck of the sweet babe on its mama's breast.

And now that I know what it is, I know how long I could be like this. Years, probably.

Everything is inward. Not so much a collapsing, but a gentle pressing.  If I stop and feel, I can feel it.  I can feel my whole self being evenly  p   u   s   h   e   d   in  on every millimeter of my body It's drastic! It's change!

A very smart woman who I love to death and emulate as much as I can used to have a note on her fridge (is it still there?) that said: Behavior = Need. It was put there when we had really little kids who were really difficult to decode and it was this concrete reminder that everything is happening because something else is happening. Whoa, right? So because of me and who and where I am right now and what I need, my behavior is changing.

So be it.  (I love that fucking phrase! SO BE IT)

I remember being like this only one or two other times in my adult life and I'm fairly certain that's why I didn't notice sooner.

While I am contracting and pulling in, my gaze has been altered (and continues to shift). My mind is doing all sorts of calculations in response to how I'm seeing things at the moment and I'm sure I'm acting a little funny.

What does it look like from here you may be asking yourselves? It looks an awful lot like my house and the insane cobwebs that are mapping the screens in most of the windows. It looks like my kids who are sprouting hairs and thoughts and motherfucking wings. It looks like my hot husband and his silver-back hair and his strong arms and patient mind. It looks like me.