“I’ve been a bit grumpy in my hats.”
Said to me by a dear coworker, this sentence immediately sent my imagination into overdrive.
What do grumpy hats look like? What kinds of conversations do they have amongst themselves on the shelf? Where can I buy these hats? Do they have accents? Do they come in multiple styles depending on the type of grumpy?
I pictured Harry Potter Sorting Hats, lumpy things sitting on dusty shelves, different colors. Also oversized top hats, blue and deflated berets, red, angry baseball caps. They’re all mumbling and whispering “can you even believe this, I cannot believe this” “the nerve of that person” “well I knew I was right, I knew that was going to fail.” Muttering about the weather and the price of milk.
Each hat had a different topic to be grumpy about. When you go into the store and try on the different hats, you know which one is meant for you because it says out loud what you are thinking and feeling. Frustrated by idiot drivers? The red baseball cap fits you perfectly. Disgruntled by life? The blue beret droops miserably on your head and commiserates with you about the bleakness and pointlessness of it all.
I myself have been wearing a negative hat or seven lately. I’m not sure when I put them on, so no idea how long they’ve been there, but they’re firmly on my head or at the front of my closet shelf. And in reality I’ve got a closet full of them. I have many shades and styles. I even have fancy boxes for them to live in, to cover up how many negative hats I’ve got, to pretend it’s all fine, nothing is the matter, look how pretty this box is, nothing is inside.
but, we're in a pandemic.
It’s an easy way out to say “this pandemic is, of course, making me grumpy and irritable and sad and blah blah” but it’s not the whole truth. It’s just a pretty box to cover up my grumpy hats. Ok it’s not really a pretty box, it’s a cardboard box with no decoration. What the world situation has done, for me, is to make me look pretty deeply inside my closet and see how many hats I own, or how many have come to own me. I’m really not sure what has changed, time-wise, that makes me do this now. I think it’s less the new schedules we’re all following and more the “what is the point of this” question that I know is spreading through everyone. And since it’s happening all at the same time for everybody, that’s some pretty powerful energy out there in the universe to latch onto and ride out with the rest of humanity.
I don’t feel great about what’s in my closet. I also don’t feel great, about not feeling great, because I thought I was top of the world and completely centered and focused, that I had it all together and life was going along at a comfortable speed. The truth is, it’s not and wasn’t. I’ve been carrying around a lot of stuff, for a long time. One of the most recent moments of “dealing with my shit” I’ve had was when I moved to Germany. I had 12 hours of travel time to think “right, it’s time to sort out whatever it is that needs to be sorted out, close out that chapter, open up this one, and hit the ground running.” The next few months were acclimating to a new normal, that was supposed to be a temporary several months in nature, and here I am 5 years later, still acclimating. When in survival mode, which is what I think I was doing as I adjusted, there isn’t much or any energy for personal reflection and betterment. I think I forgot to actually exit survival and acclimate mode.
Looking at anxiety, fear, anger, all of it, and saying “well hello, how long have you been around?” is extraordinarily uncomfortable. Especially to a person who believes she has it all under control. It makes me wonder “how long have I been getting dressed for the day, checking my appearance in the mirror, and not seeing the pile of grumpy hats I’ve been wearing?” What’s also uncomfortable, is even though I think I have had everything in order, including knowing that I don’t have some things in order, is I’ve been telling myself that I’m so great at being out of my comfort zone and holding duality in complex thoughts. And then really heavy life tests come along and I’m suddenly feeling barely able to get out of bed some days. What bigger life test is there other than a pandemic?
Luckily, I have a MallieCat who ensures I am up and out of bed at a reasonable hour (when the sun is barely above the horizon, obviously) to deliver her eats.
nothing makes sense anymore
When preparing for a test, it’s important to know what’s going to be on the test, then we can start gathering up the necessary materials and set aside the time to memorize or learn the analytical methods for the problems which will be on the test. Unless you are an epidemiologist, or another type of -ologist who will be in the labs and the hospitals working to get us all out of this nightmare, you are probably also at home, hitting refresh on the Amazon Deals page, wondering if you should start tracking all the Netflix shows you watch because you’re pretty sure you’ve seen some of them two or three times in a row without realizing, and maybe contemplating “what is the point of all this” while staring out at the window, staring at others who are also staring out the window. This test we’re all in right now, is not something the vast majority of the population was able to study and prepare for, and has caught us off guard, uncertain, scared, and questioning everything.
I’ve stared out my windows enough. I’ve shown some seriously amazing resilience at resisting the call of the fridge and pantry. I still don’t know what happens in the rest of Tiger King. Basically, I needed a break, from taking a break. And I didn’t decide that need consciously; it came upon me one morning, something like a tornado ripping up my house around me, waking up with a heart rate somewhere around that of a cat with the 3am zoomies, and the thought “oh my god…nothing makes sense anymore and nothing matters.”
If that’s not one of the best ways to start a Tuesday then I don’t know what is.
It. Sucked. And it continues to suck, but a little less each day. Basically what happened is my soul said “you may think you’re happily participating in #pandemiclife by calling everyone you know, catching up for hours, embracing #workzoomlifebalance, and staying quietly focused on getting through, but in reality, we’re going to fuck your shit up here and make you wear some hats.” I alluded to this blessed moment of silence a few weeks ago, and decided I should elaborate, to keep myself honest. Well, myself and the 42 of you signed up for email updates. Who wants to be 43?!
Just a few weeks ago, I was centered and calm in a “keep calm and carry on” way. Now, I’m off balance and teetering. I’m realizing I have interesting issues with control. Needing to control my environment, myself, my thoughts, my diet, my feelings, my needs. I realized this, when I realized even the mere thought of “am I controlling?” sent me into a time-warp brain loop “change the modularity of the deflector shield!” thought spiral. Look back at the previous paragraphs in this post and count up how many times that theme popped up. Writing about it so much wasn’t a conscious thought, I can tell you that.
This thought loop has had me in an angry hat most of the time, a sad woe is me hat and, purchased specially for this season’s fashions, an anxiety fascinator which is perched over my left ear and fastened down with 89 bobby-pins. The reason I’m so thrown by this, is I identified as easy-going, go with the flow, change what I can and accept what I cannot. I am now exploring, lovingly, what it is about control that is so, controlling, in my life. Right now for me, it’s enough to learn that my controlling anxiety exists. We’re getting acquainted. I’m saying hello, asking about its family, where it went to school, what sign is it (Gemini, obvi, since I’m one). I am learning to not control, control.
I’m also learning more about that new anxious hat. It’s probably older than this season, and I subconsciously picked it up out of the box a long time ago and put it on the shelf, unaware of why. I am guessing it’s there because of the controlling side of myself. When I can’t control, I put it on. When I realize that hat is on, then out comes an angry hat, along with a sad hat. Part of getting used to this hat is also learning how to take it off. Anxiety hat has become glued to my head, and I want it off. Since I am exercising not controlling control, I’ve had to learn some new things and rituals.
Some things
Turns out, writing out goals isn’t my jam. It ramps up the anxiety. Why, I don’t know, but I don’t need to know right now so that’s done for the moment. Movement, writing, listening to and reading books, baths, these are all things I turn back to time and time again throughout my life for comfort and instead of falling into habits, I am consciously choosing to turn to them. Not controlling, but to say “I need some comfort, because I am feeling…and I would like to stop feeling that way, therefore I choose to….and at the end I will look at what I was feeling and evaluate my thought loop then.” To look with intent for comfort in order to examine better what’s still deep in my closet. Even writing this way feels too kumbayah to me and not entirely natural, and yet, it’s actually really authentic to me at the same time.
Yoga has become my favorite solace. Turns out, all that woo woo breathing and hand movement actually does feel life-changing, when you let it, and I had never let it do that for me before. I did one practice the other night which was themed around Nourish (or Cherish, or Rest, something) which involved doing a series of sitting movements wrapped in a blanket. There were also pillows involved. This was absolutely my kind of yoga. It was a bit later at night so it was dark, very cozy. One of the last movements was to bring the hands across the chest to hug the opposite shoulders, and give ourselves a warm and loving hug.
I am not kidding, I burst into tears.
It was so comfortable, and so gentle, and just what I needed. I didn’t even feel silly, sobbing in my living room wrapped in a blanket on a yoga mat with a chirpy yoga video on YouTube telling me to hug it out. Writing that however, hilarious to reimagine from a different point of view. Being able to look back and remember the relief, and being able to find it somewhat amusing now, feels like a little bit of the me who holds duality and complexity together, and I think this is a happy sign for myself.
I think there might only be 74 bobby-pins holding my anxiety fascinator in place now.