What is this I’m feeling?

I love this photo. It’s not of me. I have no photo of myself that conveys what I want to share. To me, the woman in the photo seems to be searching for something that is just out of reach, which is what I am going through right now.

I am not sure what has been going on inside of me these past few days. It feels like boredom because I don’t know what to do with myself, but my mind has thoughts of things to do – read, write, work on art projects, do Qi Gong, clean my apartment – but I have no interest in doing any of these things.

Is it depression? My body aches, and I feel tired, sleepy. I think there is an underlying sadness, but I can’t connect with it. I’ve felt stressed out lately, having little to no patience with things and people.

Is it because of my writing my blog, and reading the blogs of other trauma survivors? Am I being triggered in some way?

Is it that my friend, Sheryl, is dying from pancreatic cancer? Her oncologist has stopped her chemo treatments. She started hospice this week. I don’t think that what I’m feeling has too much to do with Sheryl because her dying doesn’t seem real to me. I don’t think her dying is going to have an impact on me until after she’s gone. I have no fear of death. I see it as a transition from this world back to the world of Spirit, back to the Source. I think Sheryl will finally be at peace once she returns Home.

I think that her dying will only affect me when she is gone. Perhaps at her wake, funeral, or memorial service. Perhaps not. I think it will hit me when I go to pick up the phone to talk with her and realize that I can’t. Her absence is what will hit me hardest. We have spent more than ten years as close friends, talking on the phone every day, visiting with each other for hours several times a week. Her absence will leave a void in my life that I will need to fill with something. While I realize all this intellectually, I don’t feel a sense of loss yet, at the prospect of no longer having her in my life.

So, if it’s not about Sheryl, then what is causing this feeling of boredom, or sadness, or unease? All I want to do, and have wanted to do for days, is to sit in silence and get lost in the beautiful piano music that I play on Pandora. I could listen to it all day and night – every day and night. I spend hours listening to it, I’m listening to it as I write this. It soothes my Spirit, sustains me in some way.

Why does my Spirit need soothing? Maybe it does have something to do with writing my blog posts, and being there to share in what other bloggers who are trauma survivors are going through. Maybe it’s my trauma stuff trying to surface. Maybe it is my inner child, Penelope, trying to get my attention.

I’ll have to see if I can sit with it, let whatever is there come up – if I can. I’ve tried so many times before, but it never happens. Things, feelings, remain buried beneath the surface, always out of reach. I’ll just have to keep trying to connect with whatever is going on with me, and be okay with it if I can’t.

Photo by Eli Defaria on Unsplash