Rabbit holes

I can’t find the center, or the balance. I feel like I am careening over on one side rather than bouncing up and down from the center. Moderation has left and I am starving with an insatiable appetite for more information as my “work” life pulls me out of alignment and into a hole sized for a rabbit, or two, or twenty.

Maybe winter is to blame for my extreme polarization, I have a case of the homebodies, once I walk in the door, it’s so hard for me to leave. I don’t make plans, feel zapped of motivation and happy to just sit down. Maybe Spring is to blame, rain rain go away, there is more than normal precipitation this year over here in Denver. We’ve been transported overnight without warning to the pacific northwest, I’m living an episode of the twilight zone. Who wants to go outside and get hailed on, rained on, or caught in the lightning (with chances of being struck much more likely within a Colorado zip code), not me, I don’t like wet clothing touching my body, gag.

Biking used to pull me and sway my weekly plans. A ride after work meant the bike rode in my car and a group kept me focused on an end goal that moved my body, usually griping up a steep hill till the downhill pulled my frown away and left my lips in a smile across my face. That rhythm has abandoned me as I fold in creases from too much time in a chair. The concern that niggles is that I don’t appear to care. Where is the protest? Hmm, I hear silence.

Maybe pollen is to blame, my sinuses drain with the loudest “achoo”, and the tissues are always gone when I need them, what room are they in now? Teddy, my dog, follows me around, hoping to help make the used white balled up tissue disappear from sight, gulp. The sun stays up late, I love knowing it’s out there, somewhere above the clouds but I haven’t enjoyed it yet. Keeping my eyes open past ten is a dream I only dream when I am awake since sleeping is complicated. I wake with lines running down my face. They no longer rub away after rising, but like a ridge to a valley they stand out in the mirror now a permanent part of my face. So much for collagen. Maybe the mattress is to blame. I wake up with numb shoulders and arms, unable to toss and turn staying stationed on my side, sunken into the foam someone calls a mattreess…it offers no support to any part of me, crooked, crooked I don’t feel rested. Is it nine pm? I would like to fall asleep now, rats is only 6.

Chai, it tastes good all year long, warm or cold mixed with oat milk, it’s spicy creaminess makes me happy to see the morning and I tell myself it keeps me going throughout the day…but I doubt it has that much power. I dream about the families that I work with, taking home their problems, trying to find the solution, curiosity killed the cat…I wonder if it’s killing me? Is that why I can’t focus? I have traded the world for a dark den shared with too many rabbits. Achoo. Am I staring into space or at your face while we talk, not blinking? Oh sorry, maybe that’s my liver detoxing the cheese I ate. Cheater, cheater, I just had to have those enchiladas. I feel like taking a nap, why am I so tired? Can allergies make you sleepy? Achoo. I have found a niche and want to know everything, break it down, build it up, question this and try that. Bottle feeding, breastfeeding, problem feeding, rabbit hole…Jackie don’t forget your own feeding eat some lunch, it’s already 2pm. I am melting. Maybe missing lunch is to blame?

More staring at the wall and out the window watching bugs circle round, swat-smack a mosquito didn’t make it off my leg, but his last words are swelling on my ankle. What’s for dinner? The same three things that are quick to make, where is the convenience of healthy choices…my tastebuds need a trip. Boring flavors, boring tastes, why is eating mandatory? Three times a day is really over kill, it’s an offense to my senses, It’s really not practical and much too frequent for my planning skills.

Hello tree, can I stare at you for a while? Your leaves are green and happy mesmerizing me as they dance in the breeze, you remind me of life when it feels so carefree. Sometimes I need to just be on empty and coast a while without looking for the gas station like it’s an emergency. I forget the pause button and life is barreling forward too fast…summer is almost here and it’s already feeling over. BARK-BARK! The revorie is over, too many dogs barking, please oh please STOP! My sensory system is overloaded and I see the edge, don’t snap.

Winter was long, cold and hard and spring is only just letting up with sunny days filling the sky. It’s hard to monitor the weather from a foot underground, burrowed down deep with the fluffy white tails. Running is easy, when I want to do it, but lately that feels hard and my body said no thank you so it walked instead. I didn’t mind the organization that I felt come over me, bouncing back into a shape that is more familiarly me. I joined the gym to go back to yoga…I haven’t made it there yet. Accountability is hard for me to create for myself…when did I get to be so lazy? Do I smell enchiladas?

There is a magnetic pull on my life and it’s pulling me stuck, I need it to flip so I can run out. Sitting on the porch to write and view a tree, smack-slap another one bites the dust, now there are 24 bite marks that I must scratch. Vacation, I need you, I want you so bad. Not just a weekend but two weeks instead. To lie somewhere pretty, near the beach or a lake. A kayak to paddle and something to do, with no phone, no internet and, gasp dare I say, no rabbit hole. No decisions to make, just when to be where and for someone else to tell me the agenda and how to move to get there. Pick me up, drive me there, get gas and food, hand it to me when I am hungry, take me home when it’s done, just in time for lights out. Far, far away where all things are new, people watching seems different when you change the point of view. Out of the country, I would love to be, but budgets aren’t friendly when you’ve made down payments on a rabbit sized hole.

Contentment is longing for me to come back. I remember it’s calling with each single breath, but I’ve been too busy to entertain its lament. Longing for simple, yet dying to thrive, responsibility curiously has eaten me alive. Maybe I will resurface and relax one day soon, remember the present with simpler times. For now, I am sleepy, I’ll just rest my eyes, like the dogs who dream beside me, running in their sleep, I am sure they understand the trap that I’m in, of chasing the rabbit and diving headfirst into its hole.