Uncomfortably numb/decompression

Some perspective.  We left Barbados less than two months ago.  Two years of complete numbness, disconnection, soul ache that ended with leaving the home we knew there so the owners of said home could have a place to quickly vacation having no consideration whatsoever for our feelings or situation.  After that house, the whirlwind.  Condo, hotel, rooms in my parents' house, hotel, hotel, friends' home.  Friends, goodbyes, family, goodbyes, no one, cousins, kids, empty house, new home.  The intensity of the experience exacerbated by a lack of sleep, fear of the unknown, fretting for the children, hoping and praying they are ok in the middle of all this chaos, disconnection, numbness, tightness, tension.


Slowly I am rising to the surface.  Decompressing.  Like living underwater in a submarine for years, I paid most attention to whatever was at hand and put on the back burner so many things--feelings, longing, desire--I just couldn't have survived letting my truths come up and grab me by the neck while I was hot and sweaty and angry and frustrated.  And as I rise, as my equilibrium returns, the deluge.  It's not just that there are tears, there are plenty, but I came up in my 40s (41 actually, racing towards 42), having arrived in Barbados on the edge of 39 and still feeling hopeful, youthful.  As I surface, bubbles and steam blowing from my mouth, blinking from my eyes, and pooling off my hair, I arrive in a midlife crisis of sorts.  Either nothing fits or it does and feels old.  My skin is clammy, my brows are pinched in a deep furrow, and my heart is encased in a glue.  It's beating in there.  It's loving, but it is doing so ever so slowly.  Tentatively, fearfully.


Post traumatic stress has left me tense, nervous, on a hair trigger and then I try to cover the outbursts and slip ups with reminders of love, cuddles, chatty conversation.  As if anyone believes the cover.  At least not the girls.  It is the numbness that is most telling.  I feel like I am still underwater looking through the eyes behind my eyes.  Blinking, blinking, blinking as fast as I can so that the tears don't come fast and hot.  I am afraid they will burn away my skin.


We left Manhattan for Barbados and returned to the States via the suburban landscape of New Jersey.  I am still torn.  I grew up in New Jersey, in a town far less diverse and open that this community and survived.  I know it will be great for the girls.  Already, here only three weeks, I have Lily in a sports camp, playing on the playground, going for walks in town, telling me how much she loves it here.  Virginie is riding her tricycle in the driveway and knows what popsicle she loves from the ice cream truck.  This place could be idyllic for them.  There are mixed kids and families, straight, gay, old, young, smiles and surely some frowns, though we don't see lots.  We've had a run in with a playground bully, but after she was set straight by yours truly, Lily mentioned seeing her today in the same breath as, "There were lots of nice kids to play with and that girl who said mean things to me was there too."


All of the unexpressed feeling and tension still twists in my muscles, so I walk.  I have the car at home and voyage out to discover the town and go to Target/Whole Foods/Trader Joe's/Best Buy, all the perks of suburban living, but it is walking that is thawing out these limbs, getting blood pumping to my veins and allowing me to feel again.  And the feelings are exhausting.  The expression, "walk a mile in another man's shoes" is so telling.  It is the walking, the moving, breathing, reflecting that gives us an idea what someone else is dealing with.  If we cannot empathize, feel the feelings, how can we connect?  I am trying to reconnect with everyone and everything in my life, but especially with myself.  I was on my way, on a path, had a direction, so I thought, before we left for Barbados.  I didn't trust that we had any other options or that I could talk to anyone about my fears and concerns about making the move.  We can't go back, but I have to make the changes for the future. 


I need to speak, to share, to communicate my needs, my dreams, my goals.  I certainly do not hold anyone else responsible for my mistakes or my choices, but I am starting to breathe with my own lungs, feel with my whole heart, and think with my own mind.  I can, should, must trust myself.  The transition from all the way down there back up is terrifying, stressful, and exciting.  It's probably best that I can't or don't allow myself to feel everything at once lest I explode.  If this is a midlife crisis, and I surely hope I have at least 42 more years, I hope I can sail smoothly into the second act.


(c)  Copyright 2011.  City Mom in the Jungle.