27. The Impermanent Calm Before the Storm

Hello, Welcome. I’m Renée Valentina, and this is Musing Interruptus. A collection of thoughts, stories, and a few idiomatic phrases. If you enjoy it, subscribe, follow, share, and make a contribution vía PayPal, but more importantly, continue the conversation. Drop a comment with your answers to today’s questions! I’ve missed hearing from you! Today, the impermanent calm before the stormAn event in itself - that calm- actually happens. I’m not saying it’s a rule. Just that it actually happens. I’ve experienced that type of calm several times. It feels like a grounding process. As if it were possible to gather energy from the Earth for something about to come. For the fuckery the universe has in store for us. What makes this type of calm different from everyday life is the thought that slices through the air and my temples. A sharp instruction: enjoy this, before the storm comes. And I always second-guess it. What storm? I argue with my intuition, mistaking it for insecurity, and that place where fatalism lives and spills out and floods the rest of my brain. Parallely, and just in case, I ask myself not to lose my true north, to remember to take care of myself, and just breathe. An eerie atmosphere, indeed. I wasn’t second-guessing much this time. So far, I’ve managed. –Unlike past occasions-, I’m able to navigate this with a certain aplomb and acceptance of things to come. Acceptance of that which spans out of my reach, far from my control. A fatiguing powerlessness. The thought, what’s the use of resisting, keeps coming to mind. Nothing good comes from resisting arrest, resisting change, or resisting loss. Nothing.The eerie calm before the storm included a reset that sent me down the hole of faux helplessness. Looking back, I don’t really understand my reactions. It was unlike me to make decisions so impulsively. But I did, and I immediately suffered them. A simulated great loss that orbited away, out of proportion and out of this galaxy. I even got an afternoon to cry over it. The next morning, I was able to -undo- it. That’s why I say it was simulated. Everything was put back in its place so I could strategize, back up, and make the necessary changes with a plan. -Like any rational and functional adult.- In retrospect, I flew off the handle for something that pales in importance when compared to what was really to come. For whatever reason, I had this overreaction; it was great to vent, you know, let off steam. Unknowingly making much-needed space. I even got a surprise visit from out-of-town friends and one great night of sleep. All in all, I had gathered my bearings and put things in order. What a year this has been. Much more than what I bargained for. My sister reminds me to give myself grace. I hope she does the same. I can grasp that the evolution of normality is not only a matter of perception; it reveals a need and longing for stability, continuity, and peace, to say the least. I say this instead of accepting impermanence, impermanence being a construct that assures nothing except what defines it. Learning to find peace amidst constant change is the real task. I assume that is real stability. I long for it not to be a challenge. To at peace with all of it, including the possibility of losing someone. Uncertainty doesn’t help. And being at peace with it doesn’t mean it won’t hurt or that it is comfortable. At this point, I think it means not hurting myself through resistance. Continue reading