Invisible Chains

I'm watching, she spins, she slides and I wait, involuntarily flexing the muscles along with her. Eternally frustrated, like this beast bursting forth from my fingers, it wont be enough, it wont be good enough, the nagging echoes in my mind, it wont be good enough.

Like these moments where I war with myself over the 'one more glass of wine' I'm a mother, I'm breastfeeding, I shouldn't, I can't. Like these moments, I watch you sighing in your sleep as I pontificate my latest ridiculousness and you try, oh lord you try, to stay awake but it's been a long day, and it's catching up to you, I must not be entertaining enough, not thrilling enough. I try, try and put these words, these images from their foggy place in my mind into a jumbled piled of jargon streaming madly frustrated and furious from my finger tips. I've been staring at this screen off an on now for a weeks time, begging for this topic I put on myself to inspire The Greatest, instead of my latest hack, my latest failure, trapped under a pile of word soup.

Maybe that's a lie maybe it's all a lie found at the bottom of this bottomless bottle this life has become. It was so easy to not be so wound up over nothing when I was broke and struggling and I couldn't afford to just have whatever I want. I mean obviously I don't have everything, but I feel like I do, I feel like the contrast of this Hollywood-esque rags to riches story that my life has become, where I've gone from nothing to wanting for nothing, is so indulgent, so full of whimsy and freedom. I don't deserve it, I'm quick to point out, it's your house, your world, we're renting space in (and you're just as quick to remind me, that it's our house, our world, but how am I supposed to reconcile that with the bank of the universe? How I am suppose to allow for that kind of freedom and generosity from a life I'd only expected suffering and hardship from?) and it never stops, the spinning of the gerbil in my mind-cage, the spinning of the girl on the pole who's body I envy... But it's not the body, not its slender hips or it's tight middle, it's perky barely-there breasts, the gentle curve of the spine, no it's not the body that I envy it's that the body that spins, is hers. There is no dragon waiting for her in the shadows, the chronic shoulds (I should quit, do something respectable, I should definitely not have one more glass of wine, I should just do something with my life already...) don't reach her, because she is accountable solely to herself.

I used to wake up in the mornings and slay the dragon, you might know the dragon, he's not as mean or menacing as he used to be, though he's brought some side kicks with him lately, but the dragon himself looms eerily over the bed. In years passed he held me down by my throat each morning, I couldn't sleep on my back because he'd suffocate me with his smoke, and torment me with his flames. Every morning was a battle to get out of bed, and some days it wasn't a battle I wanted to pick, some days I just let him triumph and didn't get up at all. Now he's little more than a shadow that just hovers, I don't war with him to get out of bed every morning like I used to, now he just is, hovering like a cloud, peeking almost child-like out from behind a dresser. He's a black and white shadow now, the color seeped out of him somewhere in my early twenties with a combination of Celexa and Valium, the mighty swords that ground him into submission, they called him 'A Major Depressive Episode', I didn't think that name suited a dragon, so I named him George. Over the years we've become tolerant of each other, not friends exactly, I think if you make friends with your mental illnesses you've probably given them a bit too much power, and I like George in his black and white frame, less defined, though I must admit I'd probably miss him a little if he completely disappeared.

I have these adorable reasons for being, three of them now that outline and define my being, though the more human they get, the less tiny and primal, the less they become reasons for being and more they become reasons for staying. See the funny thing about my dragon, and about my life, is that long ago he(the dragon) convinced me my presence here was temporary that I wasn't needed or particularly wanted, and in many ways, I knew he was right. And then along came the first of three little babies, and my whole world erupted into bright blossoming colors, suddenly there was a reason to get out of bed, to fight with myself for 'better' and a funny thing happened, everything came in second place.

Dragons don't particularly like to come in second. They don't want the silver medal, they want the gold, and so mine brought in some friends, some repetitive nagging friends. And they tell me, all the things I shouldn't do, I definitely shouldn't have had that one more glass of wine, I definitely shouldn't still be dancing, shouldn't be enjoying, shouldn't be so self indulgent. I shouldn't be ignoring my real world in favor of writing, of reading, of bathing, of working. The guilt over working and leaving the baby, the guilt over not working and "mooching", the guilt over drinking or not drinking and being antisocial, not fitting in, over eating too much or not enough or fitting into my size 1's or not fitting into them, of attending every school play and choir recital for my eldest, of not having enough time for the middle child, of giving away too much or not enough all at once.

They aren't dragons, no, they don't hover menacing at the edge of the bed, heavy on my chest binding me to do the bed. These anxious racing friends of the dragon that hold me back in their own terrifying ways, aren't a named beast I can slay, they're shapeless forms, nagging, guilt-ridden panic-stricken moments, and I've yet to figure out how to name them and keep them in line, the way I have with George.


This is my entry for LJ Idol Exhibit A week 8 topic; Invisible Chains