My grandma died

 And I don't know what to say or do. I feel like I'm watching myself go through all these motions, but I'm not really sure how to connect with it. 

This is what I know:

It feels good to be around friends, the sound of their voices makes me feel warm. I fear that I cannot empathize with them as well as I normally can, but it's hard to care and I think it's okay.

I feel really critical of myself in a lot of ways. I think I'm depressed so a lot is skewing negative. One positive thing about this is that I know that I was not depressed because I've noticed the shift into depression. So yay for that.

Everything feels kind of hard

Time doesn't make much sense

I can't feel my emotions very intricately. It's mostly just bad and good at the moment.

I don't know how to talk about my experience and when I try it doesn't sound like it makes sense. I think I just feel like I can't make sense of it myself so how could someone else understand. Though I know that other people understand loss so it's not logical. 

I want to self-medicate with substances and that makes me nervous, but it's hard to really feel the nervousness. I grateful to be aware of my hesitation and that opportunity to reflect on my substance use habits and cravings despite what I choose to do about it.

I'm generally uncomfortable. My body aches, my mind feels kind of floaty, very little feels exciting and my motivation is absolute crap right now.

I know I will get through this however imperfectly. 

I can't rush it

I can't control it

I can only exist

Itching for something

 I long for...

Something, but I'm not quite sure what it is.

Several possibilities flit through my mind: sex, drugs, partnership?

I feel content in my life. School, friends, work, my housing is secure and comfortable. I am safe. And I finally feel safe. But I itch...for something. 

I book an appointment with my counsellor, hoping that our visit will bring me some clarity.

To be honest, I feel guilty that my life is so good and I just want something more. Is that just the experience of our society. Of capitalism? Never quite happy. 

I've felt lonely before, afraid of not finding 'the one'. Which I no longer believe in. But this kind of loneliness is no longer about 'the one', but it's about being in a pandemic and the continent being on fire and the daily visual landscape shrouded in smoke and folks wearing masks and wondering...what the fuck is going on.

It's easy to forget, like it's all a weird movie I watched and lingers on my mind. But the reality is that I'm scared and I don't talk about it because I'm afraid there's no space for my fear. I don't want to visit my grandma, when strangers get too close to me I feel sick to my stomach, I want someone that I trust to tell me everything is going to be okay, but sometimes I don't trust anyone. 

I want to trust in humanity, but I watch documentaries about the American prison system and I feel chills travel through my entire body. What the fuck is going on?

How do I continue to exist in a suspicious and malicious society? How does it not become contagious? How do I even make it from one day to the next. 

I'm exhausted. I'm feeling hopeless. I guess it's time to watch some Netflix.

Swirling Anxiety

 My mind spins around and around. I can't stop thinking of anything, everything. Bikes, people, money, work, school, things, netflix shows. It's all swirling around like an anxious mess. I try to breathe through it and turn it off, but there is only temporary relief. I attempt to praise myself for trying, but the feelings dissipates quickly and the building swirl resumes. It this anxiety?

I wonder what the meaning of anxiety really is. We talk about how more people are anxious these days. If it's normal, then can you really diagnose the majority? Isn't diagnosis for outliers? Am I normal? 

I fight thoughts that tell me I'm a bad person, incapable, unwell, broken, unlikable. I know they aren't true, but they feel so real.

I try to sleep, but I'm uncomfortable.

I wake up to swirling thoughts. 

Swirling thoughts are drowning me.

I have all these suggestions of ways that I have failed to manage them through past actions and choices. It only encourages them to grow louder.

Breathe.

Breathe.

Breathe.

Play music?

Being a Female Bicycle Mechanic

     After a few years break from working professionally with bicycles, I decided to return to the industry. I realize that I never truly left as I found places to volunteer and ways to maintain my own bike. It is a passion that I don't even need to try to involve myself with, it seems to follow me around wherever I go. I'm not complaining, bicycles bring me a ton of joy.

    The first time I built my own bike and took it for a test ride tears pooled in my eyes. It was literally one of the best moments of my life. Then to go on and use that bicycle to make a living by couriering...I was over the moon with my accomplishments. Buying a car and realizing I no longer had the freedom, independence and safety that fixing my own mode of transportation offered me was disheartening and I wasn't motivated to keep it for long. 

    Re-entering the industry, especially as a mechanic, was pretty terrifying for me. I could tell that my adrenals were going and I felt really attached to the outcome of my applications. I felt conspicuous when I went into bike shops, eyed by the many dudes with curious eyes, assumptions that I was applying for a sales position. Some of it in my mind and some of it real.

    Once I got a position, I was in disbelief. I sailed through my interviews with directness and honesty about what I was looking for and a feigned confidence that I didn't truly feel. My sense of feeling like it was a long shot seemed to give me a nothing-to-lose edge. 

    Why though? I have plenty of experience in different shops over the years. I am definitely qualified on paper and in reality. It just feels like no matter how hard I try I feel like I'm not really doing it. The story goes: Bike mechanics? That's not something I'm capable of.

    Even though I'm doing it, my mind is telling me I'm not. It's confusing and debilitating. It interferes with my work, my mental health, my interpersonal relationships with my colleagues. Half of my day is spent just convincing myself that I deserve to be there and I'm generally surrounded by guys that I feel cannot comprehend what I'm experiencing.

    Many of them are lovely, encouraging, patient and wonderful men that are willing and eager to teach me. Yet none of them understand the mental block that I'm experiencing. None of them can coach me through that aspect of the learning. 

    I know it's an exchange and that they likely learn as much from me as I them, but I don't think they realize or appreciate it. They are teaching me a skill that we are getting paid to do, I am teaching them something more invisible. I am teaching them how to be more compassionate people. How to appreciate the elderly, how to empathize with the queers, and how to contextualize their masculinity. Quietly I labor by their sides, suffering on multiple levels about the quality and quantity of my own contribution. 

    Drained, I'm spending my day off trying to collect the pieces of myself, eye twitching/appetite seemingly lost, endlessly grateful for my beautiful collection of friends that nourish my existence. Wondering if it's okay to do nothing, dabbling in things I consider productive and feeling like I'm living in a dreamlike haze. 

    I'm driven by the understanding that I am helping blaze a path for other sensitive individuals who might not have been able to see themselves in the culture of the trades. This fuels my passion and keeps me getting up in the morning and hopping on my bicycle. The ride in helps me prepare my mind for another strenuous workout and the ride home helps me calm my mind so I don't land at home only to dive into an unhealthy addiction.

    Will I one day feel like I belong? What does belonging feel like?