iTchY

Do you ever have one of those days where you're all agitated for no particular reason? Or there may be a reason, but you're not sure how that reason could make you agitated like you are?

Today is a day like that.

Today itches me. Today feels like my clothes feel lately... bunchy, tight and uncomfortable. Today I've ventured out to run a few errands. I talked to people. I saw some people I know. They asked me about my baby... "Are you having a boy or a girl? When are you due?"... those kinds of questions. I felt like I was standing outside myself and watching myself answer in a nice cheerful-bordering-on-sugary tone, "Oh... we didn't find out the sex of the baby. We are going to let it be a surprise." and "I'm due in March..." They then responded in equally near-sugar tones about how fun that will be. All of this occurred without incident, but in my mind all I wanted to do was scratch at the discomforts of my day... walk away from those questions and those people... tell them they were irritants and to not ask those "conversational" questions that they didn't seem genuinely interested in, just asked them because my baby bump was the most obvious thing to talk about. Clearly, I had no tolerance for them today. Or, I did, as long as I could exit my body while I answered them.

I can't name why, but I am looking forward to this day being over so I can get out of my irritating clothes, put my PJs on and go to sleep.

And hopefully wake to a non-itchy state of mind.

Moving Through

My heart-state always has a metaphor. Always. My mind conjures them like a washing machine churning clothes and if I watch long enough, the one I want will surface. Except lately the water feels still. I can't think of a fitting metaphor. So, would that mean I'm a blank slate? A vacant lot? An empty chair? Or perhaps a stripped bed? No. I think I just pegged it with the washing machine. Full of water and clothes, but no churning. Still. Silent.

Whatever it is, I can't seem to think of much these days. It could be the allergies that I'm battling, making my head feel as though it's stuffed with cotton. It might be that I'm just too tired to care. It's possible that I'm burying my head in the sand so I don't have to do any digging into my own psyche. It may be just me crawling into dormancy, temporary shut down, laying fallow, awaiting the spring when I feel like growing again.

Whatever it is, I'm up for it. Apparently it's my time to stare off into space or at least feel like I am staring blankly, even when I'm busy. It is my time to avoid looking deep into the recesses of my heart. It is my time to learn the routines of keeping a clean house. It is my time to play the guitar every night. It's my time to allow myself to go to bed if I'm sleepy. It's my time to teach my children that there are cycles in life and we need to listen and love.

It's also my time to love myself even when I don't feel like I'm moving forward.

Vacant

It's like this.

No shovel touched the snow in the driveway all winter long. No footprints. No mail in the mailbox. No light cheerfully spilling out of the windows at night. No squeals of elation, or cries of frustration were absorbed by walls, furniture or consciousness. It sat cold. It sat dark and empty.

I stared at it. I wondered at what it held in the past and what it's future would be. I walked it in my mind, living there, laughing and singing there, smelling the charcoal of the barbecue in the backyard, leaves filling out the now naked trees. I explored the vacant places in my own heart, the places, once occupied but now locked. I tried, yet again, to guess at the connection that houses have with souls, but I came up short.

All I know is that house has been in the back of my mind all day. That house wants to sing, like me.