Do you know what it’s like to not be able get your own groceries because your head is pounding and spinning? When you are driving to mass and don’t know if you will make it as the pressure in your head continually increases. When is it too much? I don’t know. The limits change everyday. Just driving to find a meditative mass was too much this morning. I was excited to leave the house. I wanted to run errands and breathe in the ocean air by this new church. It was Saint Gabriel’s, miles away from my usual spot at Saint Paul’s. But I thought probably good to stay away from my mom’s house. I sat down in a pew and felt the peace of being inside this old white concrete fortress. But unfortunately, the uncomfortableness of my body would not leave me. Most times, my body wins, albeit listening to my spirit asking to stay.
I was grasping my rosary in my hand, and praying. The lead cantor sang beautifully and I could feel her faith through her words. But I needed to go home. I needed the ice packs that I now have across the back of my head and across my lower abdomen. To quiet the noise.
It feels like my body is screaming. I don’t know entirely why, probably because I have an impending move to another state and I am scared. It’s normal to find fear in the unknown. It’s normal to find fear when you hear a woman scream for help a week ago, outside your apartment window. It’s normal to be overwhelmed after a trip to Maine and Boston to meet with a new doctor and not gain enough sleep during the trip to find stability in my health.
It’s just been a lot lately. Maybe that’s what my body is yelling to me. I’m not going to say it’s a broken record, but the common theme that my body explains to me when I push too hard is, “slow down”, “please do less, I am not fully healed yet”, “and even when I am, we will need to be cautious”.
The thing is, I am a sensitive person. Through and through.
It’s not a bad thing to feel the world more than others do. Like I was born without this filter around me. I guess others are less susceptible to the feelings that they exude on other people. But I feel all of it.
All. Of. It.
This is why it is hard while I am still flaring to feel entirely comfortable in my own skin. My skin is transparent to fear. It absorbs other people’s insecurities, their worries about their spouse, their hatred for their own beautiful bodies. I can’t go anywhere without sensing all of it.
But the point today, is that without that filter to feel safe and comfortable without all these external stimulants, being in new places is too much for my sensitive skin today. I know tomorrow will be better.
It’s hard to feel trapped in my own body, especially when it disagrees with my spirit. I wish I could go out and get groceries today, the seemingly simplest of tasks. When I can’t take care of myself, I get frustrated. But like I said my body wins, and I am forced to listen. Tomorrow will be better.
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