There's nothing like being up to your pits in Lysol to make you want a shower. That's not today's deep thought; it was just my morning. My kitchen trash can doesn't stink and I discovered all sorts of odd crannies where things like carrot peels can hide.
I know it's late to post for Deep Thoughts Friday. It's only Friday for about three more hours in my time zone. And who knows when y'all will get a chance to read this.
I've had the idea of the post in my head for several days. Maybe more like a fortnight. (Still a lovely word that just doesn't get enough use this century.) I just haven't had the words. And if you've been following this blog from the early days (nearly two years!) then you understand that I often feel like words are all I really have.
I've felt the bad days building again. So in addition to not knowing how to say what I want to say, I've felt like . . . well, imagine all of the organs in your torso jostling and bouncing around. Just willy-nilly inside you. I'm very aware of and appreciative of my ribs. They really are a cage. And without the cage my spleen would be up in my lungs, and there would a doozy of a shoving match between my bladder and pancreas.
I know people often describe building anxiety and a panic attack as feeling like a heart attack or stroke. I understand, but that's not what I feel. For me this circling around the edge of a panic attack is more like a juggler has my heart and lungs and kidneys and gall bladder and so on all flying around inside me.
Even once the bad days finally pass it will feel like nothing is quite back in the right spot, like maybe my right lung is just a smidge too far to the right. And maybe my heart is an inch or so higher n my chest than it used to be.
Anyway. I don't want to focus on that. I want to tell you my deep thought. Except that I can't because I don't know the words. Oh, I can describe the free-for-all going on inside my ribs. But whatever the words are for the free-for-all in my head, they're lost.
Or maybe they just don't exist.
That's pretty much decided until I read:
"'Because you're so full of everything,' says Charles . . . 'Love. Anger. Curiosity. Passion. Stubbornness,' he says. 'You're like a Christmas pudding.'"
That's from What Abigail Did That Summer, a lovely novella by Ben Aaronovitch.
And that's not what I've been trying to make into words, but it's part of it.
Because I'm too-too. Oh, I don't think so, but I definitely get that judgment from others. I picked up very early on that people like me when I quietly sit still and think my own little thoughts and don't bother them. (Those same people will also get very annoyed with me when I quietly sit still and think my own little thoughts and don't obviously pay attention to them.) It always seems to surprise -- and then anger -- them when I do something, anything else.
Then I'm too much.
Too opinionated (I have opinions). Too emotional (I have emotions). Too difficult (I like what I like even when it's not what they like).
But I believe it's okay that I'm too much. Well, I'm trying to. I absolutely believe that characters -- like Abigail -- who are full of everything make the best characters. Because they are full of everything. That's what makes them interesting and three-dimensional and real. They can grow and develop the most because they have the most to develop.
Ditto for actual people, the ones who exist outside of books.
And ditto for me. (This is the part I'm working on.)
So thank you, Ben Aaronovitch, if you ever stumble into this blog, for giving me such a fine starting point for a very deep thought indeed. And thank you to the other too-toos for making the world more interesting just by existing.
Hopefully holding on to my new mantra, "I am full of everything," will help me ride out this looming panic. It would be really grand if it helped me back away from the brink altogether. We'll see.
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