I have been
dithering: do I go sailing this fall or not?
I have made long
detailed lists of the pros and cons and they balance on a knife blade.
For a long time I
just don’t know.
I like to have
well laid plans to look forward to. I like to have orderliness in my life,
familiar routines, simple goals. I like to wake up knowing what I am supposed
to do that day.
I like being a high
school teacher and having a rigid curriculum, exam dates set in stone and bells
ringing all day long. I thrive on the structure.
It’s also why I
like many of the sports I choose; biking, canoeing, sailing. I know what the
goal is. Go 100k. Or whatever distance. Go forward to the next town, campsite,
point on the ocean’s surface. And then stop for the night, or not. The goal on
any day is clear: move.
Last fall it was
simple. Last fall, as I said many times, God couldn’t have made it clearer if
he had written on my bathroom mirror with permanent marker that I was supposed to go
sailing. Last fall I had no job, no kids, no husband - so why not? Last fall I
was setting out on the boat of my dreams. Last fall all three of my kids had
well-made settled plans, my husband was off gallivanting with another woman,
and I had a house and job to come back to in the spring. Last fall it was a no-brainer.
This fall it is
all less clear. This fall two of my kids are lost between activities and one of
them might even boomerang back home. I would hate to be gone if he were here. This fall I have picked a different boat that I am less certain of. This fall my
husband is saying ‘let’s try again’ and I fear that if I go I might lose the
possibility of reconciliation forever. This fall I have to move out of my house
before I leave and next spring I will come back to a pile of boxes and nowhere to live. Next spring I have no job to come back to. Maybe I should stay here and get my life in order instead of running off to sea.
I don’t like my
indecision or the uncertainty it brings.
I dither. I
dither. It is only three weeks to go and I have to decide something. If I am leaving then I need to pack for the
trip. (I also need to pack up my life here. I am supposed to be moving out of
the house I am living in before I go and as yet I have neither collected a
single box, let alone packed it, nor started to look for somewhere else to
unpack them. My situation is, undoubtedly, alarming.)
I bought a return
ticket to Copenhagen, my port of departure, because it was cheaper than a one-way
one so I note that I could go and then not stay. This thought is an indication
of my state of uncertainty.
I consider staying
here. I have friends. I could supply teach. Hunting for somewhere to live I
come across an ad for a waterfront house for rent and assume it will be
wonderful, will convince me to stay, but when I go to look at it it is small
and dark and I can only imagine being desperately lonely living in it on my
own.
I am getting sick,
literally, from the lack of decision.
So I make one: I decide
to go sailing. I have to. I will. I am going to do it. My mind is made up. There.
Elated and
energized I spend the day moving from one bedroom to another one. It is an odd pre-packing
process which might be seen by some as counterproductive but it is cleansing in
more ways than one. As I move my bed, my bookcases and my belongings across the
hall I prune. I only transfer exactly I want to keep. I take enough used books
to the library to fill the box there and make three trips to the whistle-stop
with old clothes.
I go to bed happy
that both that I have made a choice and with it, exhausted from the physical
effort of moving things, very content both with my decision and my day’s work.
I had thought the
mere act of deciding would stop my anxiety attacks.
But no.
The next morning I
am woken up yet again by the oh-so-familiar raging tornado of uncertainty
washing over me, through me, enveloping me with such force that my heart is
beating far too fast and my grasp on reality
almost lost as I am sucked into its vortex. All I can do is lie still,
resolutely, with my eyes determinedly shut, waiting for it to pass. Without
moving a muscle I allow a small tendril of consciousness to reach out and check
that my body is in fact still lying on my bed – yes I can feel the sheets below
me, I am physically safe – and then I retreat back into myself as the emotional
storm surges; the battering winds of worry and sheeting rain of doubt wracking
me, wrecking me, lifting and tossing and crashing me with such force that my
emotions are without words. I am churned and disoriented and breathless as if
being tumbled by a huge onshore wave. I am gripped by dark menacing
apprehension as if it is a horrifying mythical beast that has me in its claw. The
fear dread panic becomes so strong that that I hide even deeper within myself,
folding into an impossibly small place, and merely wait as the seemingly endless
surges of terror, slowly, oh so slowly, dull to mere trepidation, and finally,
as with all storms, eventually pass altogether. Even when the calm arrives I
continue to lie still. I am emotionally and physically drained. My muscles
ache. My mind is numb. I am shaking. Really? Even now, even having made a
decision, my subconscious is so uncertain of my choice that I am woken by this?
Woken by it? What is that? I slowly roll over open my eyes and note a sliver of
pale light escaping beneath the blinds. It must be almost morning. I am
exhausted, bone tired, done in. I feel I ought to get up
but instead I pull the covers right over myself and just lie there too tried to
do anything, to feel anything, too tired even to cry.
I have decided, I
remind myself, to go sailing. I want to. I will.
But I am less sure
than I was yesterday.
