As The World Spins
I awaken one night to stretch, my head flings back and suddenly the room lurches. I fall back into a fitful sleep hoping it will be gone in the morning. This isn't the first time vertigo has struck, so I know what I'm in for. When I again wake up, I stumble downstairs to let out the dog and find myself clutching the side of the house to retch. Thankfully after a day or so, the nausea subsides into a spinning world, and I muddle through a new skewed view of my life, exhausted and dazed. I am forced to quit a contract job and visit a physical therapist who twists my head into nauseating positions to send my dislodged ear crystals back where they belong.
I arrive at Camp Widow off balance. I have two workshops in one day, and volunteered to be a camp Ambassador and I don't know how I am going to get through the next four days. For my workshop on "Creativity After Loss" I brought supplies for approximately 35 people, but learn 64 have signed up. I hop into a Uber and get more art supplies. I cling to the podium through the workshop and Selena (my mother-in-law) and Lynn Campbell (volunteer extraordinaire!) take over as my workshop elves, helping lay out the art supplies, and getting everyone set up to paint. It's a shitshow, but the workshop seems to be well-received, and I don't fall over. I cling to the podium again through a second workshop on Anger. I get costumed for the Gala, frustrated when I realize I can't dance. I am surrounded by superheroes and feel like the antithesis of one, as if I'm holding Kryptonite.
Being off-balance is a perfect metaphor for my state of mind. If I'm honest, I've been off-balance since my break up. Yes, I've done all the things I myself would advise. I write about my heartache (words no one will ever see). I take up painting as an outlet to my grief. I exercise. I drink plenty of water, sleep and eat well. But my body betrays me, my hip zinging me on a daily basis and now vertigo reminding me that the world is turning at a furious pace. I am trying to regain my footing, but stumbling.
I make it through camp and lay at the pool to decompress, but the noise and the sunshine are cloying, everything slightly out of focus and I can't relax. Back in Seattle, as my plane touches down, I open social media to the happy photos of his new love, having completed their first marathon relay race together, the reason I had to scramble last minute to find alternate dog care. The floor collapses beneath me. I should be used to the spinning by now, but this spins me sideways in another direction.
All I have are my words so I write him a letter, one I will never send, trying to release my pain and anger, trying to right my world again. I want him to know the pain he has caused and wonder how he has escaped it, knowing he hasn't, not really. He's still grieving too. I worry he's repeating a pattern, cranking the same reel one more time. I'd like to step off my wheel for a while and take a break from the whirling.
But does the world ever stop spinning?