I’ve been slowly discovering a new mind toy. Just a concept, really. A metaphor? Once again, reading blogs, talking to peeps and experiencing the accumulated pain on dt has given me ample opportunity to intuit that I need a way to describe what may become, in my emotional life at least, the goal. Or more accurately, one goal. A tool, perhaps, that can make it possible to then dream of more. I haven’t had it within me for years to dream of anything beyond teeth-gritting survival. One day, I will dare to be human. One day.

But I’m wandering off the point. It seems to me there are times when we have no choice but to experience overwhelming emotions. Someone pushes a deep set button, and a fear response emerges. You find yourself developing intimacy with someone, and millenia of natural selection starts playing flight of the bumblebee with your hormones and insecurities as instruments. You fail at something, or experience loss, and that short SERT allele floods the system with despair.

The emotional responses are like a storm tossed ocean. Big waves carrying a poor human hither and yon, sometimes drowning them completely, always exhausting the swimmer. Denying the wave is there won’t keep you from drowning. Trying to swim against the tide just saps your energy. Deciding that storms are bad, so you won’t let one happen again is just plain silly. Diving in with both feet and a clothespin built of a faith in the benevolence of storms clipped to your nose will just get you killed faster.

I think I need to learn to surf. Though I’m not actually a surfer, in my mind to engage in this sport you need to possess a few things. Among them, the knowledge that you don’t get to decide which direction the wave goes, a deep seated respect for the power you are trying to harness, and a sense of joy in the ride…knowing you can wipe out at any moment if you get too cocky. I’m trying to build a surfboard now, the materials I’m using are a sense of perspective, self-compassion, and hard earned wisdom. The paint job will be in the colors of humor and hope, and a nice varnish of caution will help protect the finished product from the elements.  That little stabilizing fin will be made out of integrity and the love of friends and family.  I’ve yet to develop the skill to actually stand on a board, but that’s ok, I still ride the wave-even if I’m fully prone on my frail craft, clutching it to my belly in terror.