The sunrise blew my mind
I wish I had my camera with me on the drive in to work this morning so I could have shared the nuclear winter sunrise that blasted out of the horizon in the rear view mirror. There were deep purple clouds layered just above the tree line and the sun a hot pink and orange ball sitting just perched on top of the frosted trees. Most of the storm had cleared out but it was still snowing lightly and bitter cold so everything sparkled. One thick, throbbing ray of orange-pink light shot straight up into the sky for miles and miles and the sky all around glowed and seemed to positively roil with light and shadow and energy.
Because I was less than a mile from my job at the time that I noticed this extravaganza going on behind me, the elation mixed with a dash of bitterness. Work. Meh. I gazed at that beam of sunshine shooting up at daybreak (while trying to keep the car on the road) and felt the ache in my jaw from the nighttime grinding of teeth that has apparently become a recent habit. My teeth hurt. A lot. Wouldn’t I have loved to just turn that truck around and head on home to write and fold laundry and listen to music without headphones? Why yes, yes I would.
Focus on the light, I told myself. Feel the warmth even though the thermometer on the truck readout says it’s 8 degrees. And just get in there and fake it for another day. And so I did.
I’m thinking a lot about intention. And about complaining less while I’m at work. So I intend to practice at at least catching myself when I’m complaining and zipping my lips. So I caught myself about a hundred times today, but not so much with the zipping the lips part, no sirree. No, it was more like Wow! I’m bitching up a storm here aren’t I! And aren’t I justified!? I sure am! And here’s why!
But I’m also thinking a lot about how much I’ve picked at and picked on myself in recent years, and about how that just makes me feel worse and even less like growing and changing. I’ll actually share something kind of gross and personal with you because hey! it’s a blog! that’s what we bloggers do, right?
I pick at every blemish on my skin. It’s a habit that has become worse with age and now I’m a 40 year-old woman whose arms and legs are covered with angry red-purple scars. I even do it in my sleep. All of my sheets have tiny blood spots from where I scrape off tiny blemish scabs with my fingernails in the middle of the night. My hands are always snaking up my sleeves and picking away at whatever tiny bumps and imperfections pop up on my skin. I haven’t worn a skirt in years.
So these are two big things that I believe are well and truly tied together in a nearly fool-proof knot, and two big things that I intend to work on every day until I no longer do these things unconsciously. Maybe then, once I’ve brought some consciousness to the habits, I’ll be able to let them go.
Happy New Year.
"In summer we live out of doors, and have only impulses and feelings, which are all for action, and must wait commonly for the stillness and longer nights of autumn and winter before any thought will subside; we are sensible that behind the rustling leaves, and the stacks of grain, and the bare clusters of the grape, there is the field of a wholly new life, which no man has lived; that even this earth was made for more mysterious and nobler inhabitants than men and women. In the hues of October sunsets, we see the portals to other mansions than those which we occupy."
~Henry David Thoreau
January 4th, 2008 at 1:48 am
[…] wrote an interesting post today on The sunrise blew my mindHere’s a quick […]
January 4th, 2008 at 8:56 am
Hmmmmm. Well, we know you are fabulous, wee scabs and all, so I wouldn’t worry about the picking. You are just antsy. But—the job seems to be another thing. It seems to be making you grind your teeth and pick and feel unhappy and even want to stuff your feelings down. Hmmmmm. Maybe, maybe it is time to move on? Because it is possible! It is not good to grind your teeth. So—think of possibilities. What would you like ideally? Start there. Send up your wishes—shout them out! So important for you to be happy and full of your great, great spirit!!
January 4th, 2008 at 5:11 pm
[…] The sunrise blew my mind I wish I had my camera with me on the drive in to work this morning so I could have shared the nuclear winter sunrise that blasted out of the horizon in the rear view mirror. There were deep purple clouds layered just above the tree … […]
January 4th, 2008 at 7:27 pm
Tonight on the way home from the library, I started biting the dry skin on my lips, a terrible habit like your scab-picking. I thought of you, wiped off the spit with my coatsleeve and stopped. Thank you, you saved a lip today! Not to mention a jaw (it gets tired from working my lips around to where they need to be for optimal dead skin biting).
January 4th, 2008 at 11:35 pm
I do the EXACT same thing but have never been brave enough to talk about it to anyone. I just said it yesterday for the first time to my new therapist. The habit of picking at myself manifests itself in several ways and it disturbs me how automatically I do it.
Being more thoughtful and conscious is something I’m working on too.
January 5th, 2008 at 9:12 am
Hee, Darcy I did the lips thing in high school, always looking like I spent my days kissing a meat grinder. Then I found Burt’s Bees balm and while I am totally addicted and compulsively applying a new layer every three minutes, and have about 300 tubes of the stuff so there’s always one in reach, my lips are fine. My cuticles? Not so much.
January 5th, 2008 at 9:14 am
Oh, Angelina. Ten times I’ve had to stop myself from pulling down this post because it’s just so icky and embarrassing. But what the hell. I really want to get this solved, so full disclosure feels like a step in that direction. Maybe. I don’t know. I’m just sick of being all grossed out at myself.
January 5th, 2008 at 11:21 am
You do know about Burt’s Bees Lemon Butter Cuticle Cream, right? That’ll sort your cuticles out in a jiffy
I do use lip balm but have been letting myself run out of tubes of it over guilt for buying stuff in plastic (the pots gross me out, even though I could probably find glass). I think I need to get over it and indulge myself in having more lip balm.
January 5th, 2008 at 6:01 pm
I’m a chronic picker, too. Sometimes it’s nerves or anxiety, but mostly it’s plain ol’ self-mutilation which is all about hatred and control. Now, whenever I go to attack myself, I ask ‘what am I hating?’ or ‘in what area of my life am I out of control?’
I find it’s enough just to bring attention to the issue, and funnily, I seem to have fewer blemishes to gouge. Although, I still go looking.
January 5th, 2008 at 9:39 pm
My husband calls me ‘the most pickin-est person’ he knows. I have scars, too.
Happy New Year, Kelly!
January 6th, 2008 at 6:47 pm
I have a good friend who pulls all of her eyelashes out. (No, it’s not me…) She’s the most whole and hale person, but all anxiety has to go somewhere, right? I’ll be praying that you find your way of release, this year. And that work looks up for you, too. Having been in many spots where I loathe my work, I feel for you. (I’m trying to extricate myself right now!)
January 7th, 2008 at 8:30 am
I’m a teeth grinder (bruxism) so I recommend getting a mouth guard, it’ll save you thousands in dental bills down the road if the behavior continues./
I think it’s very brave of you to lay yourself open like this to strangers, especially the skin-picking, which no doubt you find embarrassing, but it’s an impulse disorder/OCD and it’s probably treatable with drugs and or therapy. I can attest to the efficacy of therapy and meds, I have some issues of my own and it really helps to talk it out with someone…. or write it out as you have done so very well.