...but in having new eyes

"The voyage of true discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes," reads the exquisitely small font on my enormous Proust ring.

And I keep getting closer to tasting the peaceful promise of that line.

The work week has been terrible, and it's only Tuesday night. The only word I can think to describe it is a slow, dense claustrophobia that has consumed me by 11am both days... I felt the knots building in my abdomen this morning before I'd even left the apartment.
Hopefully this wave will break and crest into the more euphoric, productive high that I felt at the end of last week after a few similarly unpleasant days. I don't understand why something that should "just" be work can get me so emotionally involved, but I'd love to sit this one out for a while.

Yesterday was the most classic case of the Mondays imaginable-- I spilled an entire mug of coffee into my lap and all over my keyboard, a co-worker asked me if I was pregnant (as a joke, which I didn't realize until after the initial wave of horror that she was making a comment about my physical appearance), another co-worker later commented with a shocked expression that "I...have...larger...breasts!!!" than she thought (yechh), my project is so far from what I consider to be ethical and educational that my jaw was clenched in frustration for two solid hours before I realized what I was doing and got up to take a break.

My lunch turned out to be a comical marketing sham from the grocery store... the lucky lady curse hit so swiftly that I felt like I'd been punched in the back... I realized halfway through the day that my skivvies were on inside-out, and for no reason at all, that made me mutter "shitballs!" under my breath while someone walked by me.
When I went to the gym, it was completely empty, but halfway through my run a teenage boy hopped on the treadmill right next to mine and started reading my People magazine blatantly over my shoulder. I got a cramp near the ankle that I rolled over last weekend but still ran half a mile more than I was comfortable with in case he wanted to know if John and Kate plus 8 were going to stay together or if they were getting a divorce.

All in all, it was a frustrating but hilariously bad Monday.
And despite the mostly Jane-esque clumsiness that got me into most of those messes, I think what really is at the root of the jaw-clenching angst in my week is that I'm really, really worried about some of the bigger, less laughable things, and subconsciously I'm upset enough that it's making my mugs slip through my fingers, and my clothes are being pulled on in the dark without me wanting them to be seen at all.

Six months ago, I'd come home from a Monday and a Tuesday like these feeling really lost. I'd go to a coffee shop or retreat to my room with a book in hopes of pretending that I was just feeling normal.

Instead, I came home with huge coffee blotches down the legs of my pants and fiery aches radiating down my back... I slid into the couch to work on my CD books, and although I could still feel the pinch of worry in my temples and the knots from the work day in my belly, I also felt myself sinking into the delicious softness of my new couch cushions... the sanctuary of my newly spruced-up home... I felt myself taking deep breaths and letting go of the pins and needles that I was able to do without.

I didn't retreat as I usually do-- I just let my mind get a little mellow and reminded my lungs to keep breathing so I could let go of the rest.

The difference is that I've got a better a way to open my heart these days. And to be myself without berating myself. I've found something I've always wanted, and I'm so grateful to have found it that I feel as giddy as I feel totally peaceful. It's making my worry taste less acidic; my cereal taste more nutritions; my workouts feel less manic and my sleep is less interrupted by dark bat wings.

Life may always have complicated pretzel twists... but feeling really happy and very much in my own skin is all I ask for to take on the big stuff. I'm so grateful for Tom and it keeps coming out in blurted out, sappy-ass babble that I'm sure is probably getting annoying. I'm powerless to the sap. There aren't words to express how meaningful this has been to me, and I keep having to use a stream of small, almost meaningless clichéd words to get out what I feel so strongly.

I should go to bed...
with fingers covered in ink from glue sticks and old books
and my favorite t-shirt from hawaii to fall asleep in
curled up next to a big denim pillow shaped like the protective walls of a moat

with dreams of grandeur and a less stressful wednesday,
and the persuit of more meaningful celebrations of love and happiness

.jane kathryn.