In the middle of nowhere losing my mind

I’m four hundred miles from home in a strange hotel in a one horse town searching for Sanctuary. A combination of things has brought me here. The need to take care of myself. Escape from the drudgery of everyday life. The need for solitude. The pictures I’ve been meaning to take for the past 3 years but never made time for. The fact that I run every time something or someone gets close. Realizing I can’t be everything to everyone and I need to escape from trying. Things….

Let’s start at the beginning, shall we? Actually, maybe somewhere in the middle would make more sense. Lately music has been rearranging my compound in unexpected ways. It’s been a lot of years since I found my answers, or even my questions, in music. I remember writing out the lyrics to my favourite songs as a kid. I had a binder where I kept them all, alphabetically of course. Whenever I had a question for the universe at large, I would ask my question then randomly open up my folder and look for the answer in that song. Most times I found it. The times I couldn’t find it, I’d try again. I’d keep asking the question until the ‘random’ answer made sense. I no longer have that folder but I still have those pages, saved with my sheet music, safely tucked away in storage. I need to look through them again and revisit the songs that got me through some rough times. I’ve been looking for some of the older songs but I can’t find them.

Tugboat gives me songs. It’s like the soundtrack to my life and some days it’s almost haunting how closely the words fit. I’m not sure whether our lives just have the same soundtracks or if he somehow knows what’s broken and which song might fix it. Either way, it’s scary. One of those songs sent me over the edge on Wednesday on the train ride home. (Dear Agony by Breaking Benjamin if you really want to know.) I was rattled and when I got home Life just finished the job and sent me the rest of the way over the cliff. I haven’t cried like that in a long time. I cried until I couldn’t breathe. I got home and being a typical 21^st century human, caught up on my e-mails and social media. Stupid mistake.

There was a message from Jay: I need you to try and find me a Sputnik, I can’t find one. It’s for my rat. Oh btw, how are you babes?

………… what? Haven’t heard from you in how long but you need a Sputnik?!

I promptly deactivated my Facebook account. Bollox to everyone.

Earlier in the day I’d finally finished editing a friend’s book. It had taken a few months fitting it in around my normal job and it was heavy going. I e-mailed it to him. Got a response, I can’t open up with edits, could you resend? Ok. Resent. I still can’t access edits, could you try resaving and resending? Fine. Here you go. Maybe try saving it a different way, I can’t accept edits. HOW ABOUT I DON’T CARE?!

After that, have you had a chance to think about the marketing cover for the back page? No. No I haven’t.

So coming home to another message wanting something more from me without any regard to anything outside of their request just pushed me over the edge. I messaged my sister-in-law and opted out of my birthday this weekend. That went down like a lead balloon.

I’m sorry. Meltdowns don’t work on a schedule. They come when they come and I’ll refund the cost of whatever if it will keep the peace.

I’m not ready to add another year to my scorecard. I cannot face adding on ANOTHER year with the corresponding realization that I’m in the exact same place I was the last time I added on another year. I’m in the same job that murders my soul in instalments. I have done exactly NO work on any of my hobbies or interests in longer than I can remember. I have let my creativity fade into oblivion. I don’t write. I have taken almost no pictures this year. I still go home to an empty home because I can’t find the balls to throw my heart into the deep end on someone who is worth it. My body had headed off the reservation and I’m not entirely sure when it is expected back.

I stopped making myself a priority and instead prioritized a bunch of other meaningless stuff. For what?

I need to find Sanctuary. That place within that is untouchable, the haven where all is right with the world.

So on a whim I booked myself into a hotel in a place that has a population of 1600. 200 of them are currently in this hotel which blows my mind. That a hotel in a tiny one horse town can be filled to capacity is beyond comprehension but here I am. 5 hours from home sitting in a bed, alone.

I had the TV on for company until it dawned on me I was being an idiot. I didn’t drive for 5 hours to watch HGTV. I came here for solitude and answers. I came here to step outside of my comfort zone; to see a place I haven’t seen; to photograph bridges I’ve meant to see for years; to experience one horse town life for a weekend in the middle of nowhere; to figure out if these are things I actually want to do more often or if they are things that I have romanticized in my mind.

I need to take care of myself for a while and figure out what it is I had hoped to achieve at this point and what has eluded me until now.

My health and physical well-being need to move up the priority list. I’ve neglected both to my detriment for too long. That needs to change.

My sanity is hanging on by a thread. I’ve stretched myself too thin trying to be everything to everyone and I need to realize that isn’t realistic. It’s not up to me to make sure every person in orbit around my life is blissfully happy and satisfied. That is their responsibility. I will help where I can but I also need to start being a bit more selective about that too. Just because I CAN help, doesn’t mean I should. I can fix anything given enough time, a spreadsheet and the will to do it. Unless that thing is myself, in which case I’ll put that off for as long as humanly possible.

I’ve been making lists for about as long as I can remember. Things to do. Places to go. Things to try. On every single one of those lists: yoga. Learn another language. Play the guitar. Write a book.

Have I done any of those? No. Of course not. Don’t be ridiculous. Why the hell not? No idea, couldn’t tell you though I’m finally ready to commit to an answer: I’m too chicken-shit to do it. I’m so hung up on the idea that I might fail that I don’t even try. I play it safe.

Safe. The sterile road through life. I’ve got the most detailed map of that road.

Let’s not ignore the Pandora’s Box of it all. Love. I want to love someone completely. It’s the only way I know how. I’m not a glass half full kinda gal when it comes to that. It’s boots and all into the deep end or not at all. There’s no gentle entry into that pool. Crawling into a hug at the end of a shitty day; being someone else’s hug when they need to offload; that deep sleep that only seems to come when I’m buried in someone’s chest and feel safe; taking care of someone because I love them and want to cherish them; having someone step up and bat my corner; someone to toss ideas and random conversation around with; someone to find pleasure with; Sanctuary.

Every time I have opened Pandora’s Box it’s gone tits up. Actually, no. There was carnage, yes. Total mayhem, yes. Happiness……..? Yes. I’ve never been one to choose the easy way. I’ve always gone the non-conventional route. Younger guy, older guy, WAY older married guy, soldier guy on deployment, widowed guy with kids and older. I kinda like that about myself actually. My complete unwillingness and inability to conform to what anyone else wants or expects.

So what is it that I’m looking for exactly?

I’m fairly certain my soul is a thousand years old. It sure as hell feels like it. Modern things confuse me. I can’t do crowds. I can’t do constant incessant noise and chaos. I get people’d out, often. I still have the old fashioned idea that men and women have separate identities. There is nothing hotter than a man being a man doing man things. Holding doors, opening cans, getting junk off the top shelf, being all masculine and protective, stepping up and taking care of shit and doing the heavy lifting. Seriously, it drives me wild on the inside. Men being masculine and doing what they are physically built to do……… dear god. Drool.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m no pushover. I have opinions and I’ll stick to my guns. If a decision impacts me I’ll straight up be involved in making that decision. I have a job and I earn my own money. I’ll kill dinner if I have to and the chances of me being barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen are somewhere around less than zero but when a guy steps up and takes care of that shit because he can, it’s almost poetic to watch. Nothing beats it. I still want to take care of my guy. *cue backlash here – whatever. This is my blog, my opinion.*

Men and women are equal in different ways, if that makes sense. For things to be equal doesn’t mean they have to be identical. A pound of feathers and a pound of lead are equal in weight yet nothing close to identical. Yet that’s what the world is becoming. Identical in every way and then people wonder why stuff doesn’t fit anymore. We’ve gone from having 2 shapes that complement each other to having 2 identical shapes that don’t fit and everyone is sitting around, scratching their heads pondering what the hell went wrong with the world.

 

I don’t know where I fit. I’m somewhere between the soft and fluffy. I want to be protected but I also have spikes for self-preservation. The spikes make it seem like I have it all under control when in fact they exist solely because I DON’T have it all under control. The end result is I don’t fit anywhere. I’m a weird shape and in a world of cookie-cut identical shapes, there isn’t a shape that fits me. Or there is….. I just don’t know where to find it.