To Be Present With Your Own Thoughts

A dripping tap only gets worse. It’s 4am and it’s 4am and it’s 4am and I’m on the sofa, not asleep, asleep, dreaming, not dreaming, thinking, strategizing. The word ‘catastrophising’ rolls around in my head in my therapist’s voice. She’s right. She’s not right. I will decide to email her and schedule a session and I will forget almost simultaneously. He’s dead and she’s dead and she’s dead and he’s dead and she’s dead and they’re dead. People are dying. I’m recording videos instructing my community to listen to the basic advice we’ve heard many times over. It’s patronising. I’m helpless. What else can I do? It’s not patronising. They’re dying so they must not be listening. Like me when I was a teenager. Couldn’t tell me nothing. I would let you give me advice and I’d be like yeah yeah yeah safe safe safe and do my own thing anyway. A dripping tap only gets worse.

I am getting worse.

A funeral on skype. A prathna on zoom. With bandwidth issues and connectivity and lagging screens, no one is singing the same tune at the same time in the same key. No one is listening. No one is leading. We’re singing empty prayers into the eyes at the tops of our laptops and our phones. The one person I zero in on is myself. I have to check myself. Am I looking sad enough? Am I grieving publicly enough, externally enough? Remember when mum died and I carried on doing events and my mum’s cousin told me off for not taking her death seriously. And I told him he was taking it too seriously. And it was none of his business and it was none of my business and somewhere in there was a shared understanding that your way to grieve is not the correct way, my way is not the correct way, and neither of us told each other, there is no correct way. I stifle a laugh. I turn my camera off. It’s funny. Now is the time to address how funny life is. Life is fucking funny. In the moment, life can still be funny. A fleeting moment, sure. That one moment, sure. A single moment. A funeral on skype.

I text ‘don’t worry’ a lot.

I’ve shortened it to ‘DW’. I’m reaching out a lot. Organising zooms. Checking in. Are you okay? Do you want to chat nonsense? Do you want us to table our feelings? Shall we try and attempt pub chat? Shall we try and recreate a night out? I’m more social than ever. But the blurring of boundaries between home and office and social space and gymnasium and meeting room and café and nursery and school is making me tired all the time. I’m in the trash compactor in a Star War. I’m in the trash compactor in a Star War and the suit of armour I’ve disguised myself in is pulling me to the bottom. I’m losing myself. DW.

Write. Write. Write. Write. Repeat.

I create. I think it’s good. But my world is small. My cast of characters is small. My dialogue is clipped. More is left unsaid these days. I second guess every single sentence. I write and I write and I write. I realise how little time I gave to sitting with my own thoughts. Walking, I had on music or podcasts. Sleeping, I had my phone by my side, in case the life-changing message came in at 3am and we had to pack our bags for Hollywood with immediate effect. Riding trains, I was reading, watching, writing. Social space, every spare minute, absorbing company, warmth, the energy of others. I rarely sit with myself. I rarely just stare at the ceiling, lying on the sofa until now, here I am then, lying on the sofa then, staring at the ceiling then and it’s 4am again and it’s 4am again and it’s 4am again and I’m here again, like I never got up, like I never left the room, to travel from one world to another. I feel nothing. I create. I feel nothing.

I have only questions, no answers.

Who do I have left to say sorry to? Who is going to call me and ask me if I’m okay? When can I tell my children they can see their family again? What happens next? Is this a pause for me for now or is this the reckoning? What will pass? What is important now? What do I need? Who do I need? How can I be of service? What do I need? What do I need? Do I need anything? What do I need? Is it okay if I stare out of the window today? Is this a metamorphosis? What will emerge? Who will I be when I emerge? Do caterpillars feel differently when they emerge from their cocoons? What am I feeling? What am I feeling? But what am I feeling? What do I need? Why is this only about what I need? Why am I even worrying about what other people think about my thoughts?

I’m being present.

To be present is to be playing Super Mario, one of those levels where there are moving platforms, perils approaching at slow and quick speed and I’m running, jumping, looking for a one-up, existing to jump and bide my time, jump and bide my time, jump and bide my time. To be present is to look up a YouTube tutorial on fixing dripping taps. To be present is to reach the end of the level and start the next one. To be present is to keep going and accept that all I can control is what’s in front of me, and I choose to move forward to meet it. To be present is to accept that which I can control, and learn from that which I cannot. To be present.

DW.