I must continue to try to apply basic photo composition and editing skills to my life these days.
Some life activities I’ve had to crop out of my life by design (lack of bandwidth to cope) and others I’ve had my hand forced into dropping (due to a lack of focus, joy, or time). My frame is much smaller and much more narrow than it used to be. In fact, it’s currently set to tunnel vision, the micro focus end of the spectrum. I’m attempting to manage essential needs with very limited resources and trying not to let anything too important go off the rails. With such a narrow canvas I must choose content with surgical precision.
Weekdays come and work becomes the central subject, a fisheye lens, with all else blurring to the edges. Above all else I must keep earning a living to pay the bills and exorbitant exotic pet fees I keep racking up. Unfortunately my already overtaxed senses max out quickly during the workday, leaving zero emotional energy to manage other life necessities by midday or beyond.
Similarly, my thought processes are also under construction these days. If wake in the middle of the night, I am assaulted by bullets of uninvited, intrusive thoughts of fears and trauma. They echo my darkest fears, my deepest agony, my most hidden trauma. As soon as they hit there is that awful gut-clenching, breath-taking lightning bolt seizing of the body. I see them for what they are. I refuse to give them light, to reinforce those pathways. Drop the brightness, lower exposure. I breathe, untense, center, come to present moment. Change the slide. Again and again they come. Again and again – breathe, untense, center, present moment, and distract. Change the slide. The process is exhausting. It wears you down.
Where do these terrors come from? Are they locked in some mind vault, word for word, buried under trivial distractions during the day? Is this where my quivery in-breath comes from if I try to breathe deeply- am I trying to hold the torrents back in order to semi-function?
During the day, it’s a similar experience, but narrower in content and scope. It’s always triggered by the awareness of the magnitude of the loss. The bottomless chasm opens, the thunderbolt of infinite pain hits. Sharp intake of breath, sometimes doubling over, sometimes reaching out to steady oneself. I could not live in that state permanently. Breathe, intense, center, present moment… Change the slide.
I’m working on reframing other things in my life, too. A current crisis screams for me to resolve it quickly, but there is no easy resolution, no scientific dissection and diagnosis, no neat and tidy bow I can place on a perfectly wrapped package. My head always focuses on what isn’t, what should be, and wants to resolve, taking linear steps to make it right. My head longs for order and the righting of wrongs. My life these days is unfortunately nowhere near as tidy as this.
The antidote, I know, is continuing to work on accepting and focusing on being grateful for what is. Changing the reference points that bring meaning to the picture. Changing the focus. Choosing elements to brighten and the elements I need to de-emphasize and tone down.
Knowing this in the head, and applying it to your heart, however, are two very different things. It is especially hard when you feel you are tied to the railway tracks, but still trying to grasp moments of being. Sure, the train’s far out of the frame, but you can still feel the vibrations of the train headed toward you in the distance… How is it possible to remain impervious to threats- those known, or those unknown, for that matter? I’ll continue to struggle, fiddling with the editing tools.