Election day, up early
Election day, up early.
Peace is the smiling face of the woman at the registration booth. Connection is a few words of humorous good will exchanged with the woman who gives me my sticker. (She won't remember me, but that moment will sustain me for days).
The polling place is a church, and the ambiance is calm and accepting. I do not associate the concept of acceptance with church anymore, and the feeling of it in this place takes me by surprise. Perhaps it's the bookshelves I scanned while waiting for my turn at the polling machine. Catherine Coulter. Tom Clancy. Secular books with violence and sex that the churches of my upbringing would have spurned. Here, they sit proudly for all visitors to see.
I feel happy when I leave.
The day is young when arrive to work, and I move surely towards my building. I feel grounded in my body for once. My steps fall soft on a carpet of damp leaves on brick sidewalks. I relish the warm constriction of my tights and ankle boots. I soak up the sensation of freedom from my skirt blowing about my legs.
Cool autumn fog kisses my cheeks and my mind dances through a daydream of belonging.
Hope is the prospect of meaningful touch. Perhaps I’ll join a church, I think, and daydream of what it would feel like to be received and affirmed.
A new friend is made, a cup of coffee shared. I experience unusual ease of conversation. I feel anxiety-free and comfortable in my skin. I feel sure in the belief that I am a person worthy of this. Perhaps the time may come when I can accept a comforting touch, then learn to reach for it. Provide it. Maybe one day I will know what it is to hold without disgust and to be held without fear.
I feel sadness, but one born of hope. It is a looking upward from the low place.
The internal horizon is soft-sloped mountains burnished November gold. Grey skies backlit by a hazy sun. Redolent of rain-dampened earth and decaying leaves.
Nothing too bright or glaring or happy.
It’s just enough, the world I want. Joy is not perfect energy or buoyancy or excitement. It’s contentment in the knowledge that all is not well, but it is enough.
And life can be enough. Resonant in its darkness. Full-bodied. Bittersweet.
It’s beautiful, this fleeting fantasy.
Indoors, I settle into my desk by dim lamplight for a few moments.
Fluorescent lights flick on when the next person enters and the true day begins. The unusual peace of the morning drains away like gurgling dish water down the drain.
The world takes on a mien of despondency. Everything seems flat and hollow. Routine without meaning. Work without purpose.
I prepare to wear the face one must when depressed but high-functioning. Underneath, I am disconnected and disinterested from myself and the world around me. Thoughts intrude and warn me to take care. The admonishment assumes my lack of value and worth and urges me to compensate.
The tasks of the day rank-order. I shuffle my to-dos so that my spare reserves of give-a-damn are used for the most immediate tasks. I work to upend my inbox and slash away my to-do list. I am in pursuit of self-worth wearing the mask of productivity.
I give away what little care I have to those to whom I owe my time and attention by contract of my employment.
It’s time to approach my day’s tasks, but I start this document, feeling flat and empty.
I have felt flat and empty for a very long time. I’ve learned to live here, making do with occasional visits to other states.
It’s not my first time. It’s not even the worst of my experiences with this.
Today, it feels worse for its contrast with the ephemeral sense of sorrowful well-being from earlier. This document, at least, preserves some of the beautiful sadness from before.
We meander toward an end so that new beginnings will come.