a musing on bodies//feelings.

Maybe everyone will tire of hearing about my sleeping habits, but I haven't gotten real rest since I've come back to Athens (on the 31st) and I don't know why. And I've remembered every dream--sometimes multiple dreams per night--which is a little uncharacteristic of me. Last night's was really disturbing. I was caught in military state/ Thomas Pynchon novel crossing. At one point, I was badly beaten in a library; my father rescued me, but was later attacked at a road checkpoint, right in front of me, for listening to music. I felt so helpless. (I should probably call him). The whole dream was really invasive.

Lately I've been practicing making non-prescriptive, non-judgmental observations. I'm typically pretty attune to others (though, I certainly have my failures), but I'm pretty lousy at letting my own self just-be, at letting my own self feel whatever it is that I am feeling without feeling badly for feeling badly, and without holding onto Joy that is not mine to have--just to experience. And right now I'm in the midst of a shift, I think: one that I cannot fully understand, which makes it hard. I do not mind external challenges (or even carrying intense feelings/emotions internally) as long as I can understand them somehow.

I felt crazy Saturday night. I literally had six invitations to do six different things with six different people but for some reason none of them felt right. I think I just wanted to stay in and get work done, but then I felt guilty for that--like: it's a Saturday and it's the first week back, there must be something wrong with me if I do not feel like being around people. (Which is ridiculous, right? We're all entitled to feeling introspective). And suddenly I felt like a visitor and I felt really lonely for no real reason and it wasn't until I skyped Dale and verbalized it that I was able to recognize how silly and broody it all sounded. He's right: I'm just always diving for lobsters.

Then, yesterday evening, out of no where, my period started--10 days early. And I laughed because suddenly I was able to understand it all: the emotions, the sleeplessness, the acute tingling numbness in my fingers and toes...
I think I'm just a super-sensitive listener when it comes to my body. I can't drink caffeine--not even a single glass of green tea--without feeling jived at night, and stiff in the morning. And I try to pretty consciously recognize shifts in hormones that truly do effect my feelings (without apologizing for those shifts/feelings), but this time I didn't see it coming.

I do not know where this is going, really, except to point to the obvious: human bodies are magical (but confusing) things.


musing on bodies//feelings. by Leslie Albanese is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.