Reckoning

Now I am finally on the other side of all my business obligations for the year. I’m walking into that light at the end of the tunnel. Stepping into that place of rest and refreshment toward which I have been stretching my neck since last October.

So why do I feel like crap?

There’s no question that the event we just finished took a lot of starch out of me; a commodity of which I am down to my last paltry grains, in any case. It was a busy week, sometimes crazy-busy, and we did well. Record sales, in fact. But it wasn’t very fun. I was not in my happy place. I would have liked to have sailed through this event with grace and gratitude; I had planned on doing precisely that. Instead, I felt out-of-sorts and cantankerous. Nothing seemed to go smoothly and I was impatient with everyone.

Luckily, my crew was comprised of my family, who seem inclined to cut me plenty of slack. So we’re still speaking to each other. I suppose I should follow their lead and cut myself some slack; but I’m not leaning in that direction. I’m in “Beat Myself Up” mode right now, and I’m indulging in a bit of wallowing.

Here I am, on the threshold of the opportunity to do anything I want (within reason.) Why am I feeling sad and intimidated? Maybe it’s because the shadows I have not allowed to fall on me, because I needed every lumen of light and life to get me through this ending, are able to close in on me now. The thoughts I wouldn’t—couldn’t—entertain, the ones having to do with failure and heartbreak and wasted time, are encroaching and filling up the space vacated by Things That Have to Get Done.

There’s no outrunning them now. No “I’ll just get involved in this project and I won’t have to think about that.” All the garbage, all the deferred emotion, is right where I can see it and touch it. Daring me to deal with it.

And it kind of scares the hell out of me.