Sometimes it feels like there’s a peach pit in my stomach. It rolls around and grinds whatever is in its path. I can’t get comfortable. I draw in deep breaths like somehow that will dissolve this stone. I imagine drinking a chalky milk medicine my mother gave me as a child that coats and protects me from this feeling of anxiousness. There is no such medicine, of course. I take walks and lean my head back against my neck to feel the sun. Sometimes I get on the treadmill and just run and run and run.
I used to drink more, but it aggravated the symptoms and turned my state of being unsettled into rage. So now I set the wine back in the refrigerator and write long letters to the people I’ve imagined in my mind who have wronged me. There have been plenty. People and situations that I’d rather not have to deal with. And temporarily, typing out searing remarks to the person you’ve labeled as your attacker makes you feel justified in your anxiety. Because you are a victim and have had so much shit pile up upon you. No wonder why there is a rock swimming in your stomach. How can anyone endure what you have had to endure?
The problem with being a victim is that you’re on the bottom of the pile, the harmed one, the person in an inferior position. And after you write out your list of wrongs, you realize that being the One Who Is Attacked is no fun at all. Your sense of injustice is enraged. You are suddenly beholden to the reality that you’re not the victor. Which is even more depressing.
So you delete the file. Yes, you tell the patronizing computer. I do mean to delete this without saving. I do want to rip up this letter. I do want to eat those words that do not heal me but harm me. Heaping blame upon someone else for your own misery is like stabbing yourself with sharpened pencils. The lead often leaves a mark, which is strange but true.
Today the pit was there, the heavy unsettled feeling of being caught, trapped, in a dead end. The fact that I’m not actually in that place except for in my mind does not escape me. The fact that I have a husband who loves me, children who are healthy, a beautiful home, stares at me in the face. “How dare you be so ungrateful,” the voice whispers in my ear.
I went for a long walk with the dog, watching him sniff the ground and perk up his ears and take poops along the road. He loves walks like I love chocolate ice cream, and every day he is overwhelmingly excited when he knows it is imminent. I am in awe of his sense of being present, of his sheer contentment to sit by my desk as I work and follow me to the kitchen and the delight of being handed a treat to chew. He takes the world around him as a gift.
On the way back home, I passed a dead end sign and muttered to myself, shook my fist at a truck that drove too fast, and felt like an old woman. We live on this dead end, and this is how I feel. Like there is no hope for my hurting heart, that there is no pathway toward peace in my present conflict, and I keep taking deep breaths willing this stone to pass.
It did not pass.
I got home, put away the dog collar, took in a long breath of air. I checked the mail and got a glass of water and drank it slow.
I know that I am not a victim, because I have a track record of being strong. I know people may have done things regarding me or those around me that I do not like, but I get to control my reaction to those things. I know I don’t have an actual stomach ache; it’s just my anxiety talking.
I also know that I am without peace that comes from submission while I am in this place, muttering and shaking my fist and feeling the rock in my stomach. Submission to my present circumstances. Submission to things I cannot control. Submission to God himself. And I know, as I have known for years, that life is not a linear path but moves in color and bursts and feelings and seasons.
Hope does exist, not by launching attacks at my attackers, but in time and with rest. With prayer and deep soothing breaths. And texting my girlfriends dry, angry, sarcastic funny things. It helps for a moment.
These moments matter. Moments where you see the dog in all his present love of life, moments where you lie next to the person who loves you most, where they touch you and make you feel valued. The moments where your son makes you a card or your daughter lets you hold her. These moments are important, and I cherish them. Before long, you realize the rock fades to the size of a pea. And then you don’t feel it at all. You walk past the sign, the one that says dead end, to the place where you live in all the messy and wonderful moments.
This is freedom.
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