The tide's coming in

All I can think of are impressions and moments. MJ smoothing her eggplant-colored shirt with a worried look on her face in preparation for meeting Stacey's mom. Peluche curling up on my feet in my room, hiding from the sound of the vacuum. Bo getting ready for the day. Smiling and nodding while the LCs show me photos of in-jokes and exploits that I'm no longer a part of. Realizing I haven't heard my dad's voice in a few weeks. The way Sun Kil Moon's "Glenn Tipton" so accurately captures the dull ache of nostalgia. Summer air rushing over me on dusky bike rides. Drinking cheap wine on porches and in backyards. Dreams about cradling lady hips in my hands. Afternoons lulled into uneasy solitude.

When I feel something coming, I don't always know what it is. It takes a little while to sort it out. This afternoon brought some clarity. I think I'm on the brink of falling open, of letting everything rush through me like it does sometimes. I feel myself exhausting, crumbling around the edges. The state I think I'm approaching can be likened to standing naked and immobile in the kind of harsh, dry wind that cuts right through your bones. It's like I experience everything all at once, with no filter. My senses become more acute. The emotions and moods of other people become unbearably present and I can't shut them out. It's overwhelming.

I have small moments of this frequently, and they're much more manageable. One really memorable one was on Bo's porch a few weeks ago on a windy night. I listened to the trees and wind chimes swaying and felt it swelling up-- felt myself dissolving into the air, becoming utterly connected and raw. I closed my eyes and let myself go. It was euphoric.

Sometimes I think that this is my natural state, and that I've overcompensated through the years in order to survive. (This is another way to characterize my anxiety, a more personal and spiritual way that feels healthier to me. I should think of it more often.) My mom is vulnerable in a similar way-- so open to the pain and joy of her world that it overwhelms her. And of course she struggles with anxiety as well. We all need filters to survive this life. This might not make sense to a lot of people, but I feel that my mom and I, and many others I've known, are connected with and open to our world in an unusually acute way. I get in this space when I'm so exhausted by trying to hold everything at arm's length that I can't hold anything there.

There's a happy medium, to be sure. But it occurred to me today that I don't need to think of this space as negative. It's scary, overwhelming, and exhausting-- but also beautiful and enlightening and real. I don't have to run from it, and I don't have to characterize my fear of it as anxiety disordered behavior. This is how I am. Simple as that.