emotional werewolf

What the hell am I doing?

I, a person who's always used routine and busyness to create the illusion for myself that my life has meaning and value: I am about to embark on a year of no routine, and worse, intentional lack of busyness.

How will I not break apart, when these props of my value disappear?

The stress of the prospect alone is causing restless nights full of violent dreams, and the return of sobbing, 2am breakdowns, which I'd mercifully had a solid two months peace from. Apparently the idea itself is enough to transform me back into my emotional werewolf self... What will the reality do?
                                                                                             

What the hell am I doing??!!!

I, a person who's always struggled to express in writing what I can apparently describe eloquently in speech am dedicating a year not to talking, but to writing; trying to nail the jelly to the wall and then, worse, expose it to public criticism!

How am I going to survive spending every day kicking an empty can around the concrete back-yard of my disappointing incompetence?

The stress of the prospect alone has increased my already troublesome persuasion for procrastination, as usual making an impossible Everest of the 'simple' tasks of cleaning and packing my possessions. How on earth will I complete anything next year if I can't move house now?
                                                                                            

As I lay here crying, provoked by these questions into a storm of anxious, desperate tears, I apologised to you for being sad. It felt rude, ungrateful, improper and selfish...

I guess that paints you as some sort of narky, unloving, 1950s male stereotype who is demanding I keep my chin up and stop crying, frustrated by my lack of appreciation for all the work you do out of the house on my behalf...

Nothing of that portrait is true...

But as my cheek grew clammy from summer humidity plus puddle-o-tears, and my inner self grew hairier and hairier and began to howl at the moon, you kept insisting, "since you are precious and honoured in my sight, and because I love you, I will give men in exchange for you, and people in exchange for your life".*

But that reassuring attempt to tame my inner werewolf with an understanding whisper only made it worse again! It is true then that I'm selfish, ungrateful, improper and rude to bemoan my misunderstanding, mistrust, misgivings, because I'm apparently precious and honoured, but stubbornly, illogically refuse to accept it!

And so we reach a familiar impasse, You and I...

All the historical certainty of your past actions: all your promised future actions and their empirically predictable strong likelihood may satisfy the anxieties and demands of modernist rationality, but those historical certainties and statistical probabilities fail to staunch the gaping wound of my more post-modern existential angst. My psycho-spiritual frailties are unfortunately exacerbated by my po-mo suspicion of power, grand promises and happy endings... It's not buying what you're selling...

And all the words you could muster, all the promises, declarations, commands, instructions, reassurances and encouragements bounce off the perverse psychological armour my damaged brain has forged for itself, apparently in an attempt to protect me from the slings and arrows of the possibility of failed love... My armour will not allow me to accept these words of kindness and restoration...

In brief, these words of yours, for now, don't stop me crying.

I need hugs, sunrises and prayer for that...

I needed to explain all this to you, distance myself from it, observe it, analyse it, hand it to you, so that I could calm down and re-focus...

And that's really helped.

I needed to see again the fantasy and the reality, so I could have a hope of separating the two...

Thankyou for providing for my needs, for space, time and capacity to pray. Please help me to remember all the other times too: the hugs, the answers, and your promise that the sun will always rise and banish the moon.

And please help me walk with you into whatever valley, shadow-of-death or otherwise, re-casting myself now no longer in the role of werewolf, but instead of recalcitrant, stupid, small, shorn, knock-kneed, wolf-vulnerable sheep...

Amen.

*Isaiah 43:4