Greetings! Welcome to the start.
I’ll blow my cover now: I don’t put off everything. Aaaaaaactually, if it’s something I should put off, I don’t. I refuse. I’ve leapt ass first into many a situation, and though it proved to be fun in a few cases, it mostly proved to be ouch.
I remember being a youngster and sitting on top of a chair with a tall back. Dangling legs. My feet didn’t reach the cushion where my butt should have been.
I perched there like a happy cat until I lost my balance and fell backwards off the chair. My spine hit the floor. I writhed in pain, but it was more of a gliding than a writhing, like I had landed on a patch of ice.
And I couldn’t stop moving. It was not an option. I was probably flailing, but when I think back to that fall I imagine my movements as calculated, protective, and maybe even graceful. Most significantly, I remember thinking…
I have to keep moving. If I stop moving, I’ll really feel the pain.
WELL FOLKS, I don’t think I’ve stopped moving and flailing since that mid-nineties fall. I want to, but I’m scared.
Question: Have you ever stopped moving? If so, for how long? Are you still stopped? Does it hurt?
OMG, please tell me everythingggggg. I think you can comment on posts? Tell me! Oh yes, here’s where you can tell me…
Last week I met up with my ex / husband / soon-to-be-ex-husband to get the written agreement for our divorce notarized and he gave me a box of my journals that had found their way to his apartment after we moved out of our wacky Topanga cabin last spring. When I got home I opened the box and pulled out a mint green Moleskine notebook covered in stickers that I didn’t recognize at first. As I read through the entries and scribblings, recognition surfaced.
I remembered sitting on a bench in Hoboken writing the first entry.
Writing an entry while sitting on our green couch from Sunbeam Vintage. Hunched over our oval-shaped table from Sunbeam Vintage.
I cried because I love crying, and also because I’m still mulling over the same questions as I was in 2016. The big one being, “What do I want?”
I’m longing to find out, and I’m placing all my hope in this Substack.
love,
christine
<3 - <3 - <3 - <3 - <3 - <3 - <3 - <3
Today…
my favorite Taylor Swift song is “august”
the body part that hurts the most is my right hip
i have had 1 cup of coffee (so far)
i’m so glad you’re here
i’m so glad i’m here
It was horrible and it was wonderful and I couldn’t have survived it if I didn’t stop. But the movement was still happening, it was just something else more internal was moving instead of externalizing all the movement in an attempt to quiet and stop the internal from happening.