Midday Pajama Panic: My Brain's Unauthorized Field Trip Up Guilt Mountain

Part 2 of 3 - I kinda hope this is one of those posts no one reads

Ruminations Part Two of Three

Sometimes you have to let your brain out to wander and graze. I’ve been making an effort to do that lately and I thought I’d share some of my brain’s ruminations in case they might be useful to someone else. Or maybe it’s all just self-indulgent claptrap, but either way, the shit needs to get out of my head. For your sake, I’m breaking the ruminations into three separate posts because no one needs to be stuck in side my brain that long.

I kinda hope this is one of those posts no one reads

I started my week with a cataclysmic meltdown — the kind where I end up ugly-crying on my knees, begging the Universe/God/Spirit of Tom Petty to show me the light that deems me worthy of existence so that I could get out of my pajamas and go take a shower in peace. You’ve been there, right? It started when I found out my friend Tammy had a massive stroke three months ago and is still hospitalized, barely able to speak or stand. She’s younger than me, far healthier than me, hustling through life with the seemingly endless drive it takes to raise four kids and work full-time.

The fucking unfairness of it all broke me. She’s fighting for her life, trying to regain basic bodily autonomy while I am sitting at home, still in my pjs at 1:00 pm, trying to drum up the energy to go upstairs and reacquaint myself with at least one piece of the exercise equipment collecting dust in our dry and deserted “home gym.” If anyone is supposed to have a catastrophic stroke it’s me. Tammy has done everything right but my unfit ass gets off scot free; unscathed by the extra hundred pounds I carry? For three years no, my annual calcium heart scans scored a perfect zero. How is that fair?

It’s not. And I feel massive guilt about it. Survivor’s guilt, white privilege guilt, whatever guilt you got, I’ll take it. Compound that with the guilt I feel for every unearned bit of goodness I’ve been given throughout nearly six decades of life and I guess my conscience hit critical mass.

The panic, the cringy discomfort of having more good fortune than my actions have warranted — seriously, my life is proof we are living in the matrix — has been building exponentially lately because of my retirement. My Hubby does SO much and provides us with everything, damn near killing himself so that I can retire to sit at home and be an artist, writer, and fuckabout. He’s out traveling around the country rescuing one chaotic job site after another while I’m at home with the dog, the cat, and six tons of crushing self-reproach which results in the oppressive procrastination that prevents me from actually doing the art and the writing.

Hubby always says, “I couldn’t do any of this without your support,” and part of me believes that. Another part of me, a deep down, core belief part, maintains that I have to do to deserve.

Simply existing and morally-supporting and being a goddamned ray of fucking sunshine and delightfully amusing badassery doesn’t meet the requirements set forth by that malevolent, sadistic voice niggling in my brain whenever I try to let the guilt go and experience gratitude in its place.

The super stupid thing is, I would NEVER accept that kind of self-condemnation coming from my daughter or Hubby or even a total stranger. So on that ugly-crying, desperate, pleading day, I tried to give myself the grace and wisdom that I hope I would bestow on them or any fellow human; the grace that the spirit of Tom Petty would grant: YOU. ARE. ENOUGH. I am enough. Then I got up off my knees and — still in my pajamas — did a balls-to-the-wall workout in the alleged home gym and showered in a tolerable level of peace.