One small thing

[vaneramos]

Photo: self-portrait in the Eramosa River, Sept. 28.

~~~~~~~~~~

"One thing at a time," I keep reminding myself.

It's easy to expect a full day, wanting to do everything.

I'm getting used to the pin-pricking that started with the panic attack several weeks ago. Every day I feel it across the nape of my neck and shoulders. As if a cold draft had caught me or I heard a ghost. It's a trembling trace of adrenalin. It comes whenever I start to push myself forward, my body warning me, "Don't do anything! Don't change anything!" As if the world would fall out of its orbit, splat on the floor of creation.

It's better than weariness. Weariness weighs one down and prevents anything happening without an heroic exertion. I have been sleeping and I'm not tired. This is different; it's the blind, mindless reptilian brain deep within the mammalian one. The root of instinct. Something keeps holding me back, warning me. But I know that's not the answer.

You can't do much about weariness except go to bed. With anxiety, at least I can face it, go into it. Like standing on the edge of Lake Fletcher, knowing how bracing will be that first instant of contact when the fresh water folds over shoulders, back, waist, thighs, sliding like a worm into a silver tunnel. The beauty curls around, swallows, makes love to my whole body. But while I'm still standing there on the end of the dock, I have to force my mind past that moment of cold contact to the knowledge of how beautiful I'll feel in my lover's wet lap.

The places I'm trying to dive now aren't like that. I don't have much prior experience of goodness, no freshwater memory smell in the back of my mind to reinforce the reptile brain, tell it things will turn out alright. For all I know, they will continue to go badly.

But holding back is not the answer. I know that. Don't tell me my thinking is distorted, Mr. Shrink. I know perfectly well what I have to do. It's my feelings that are distorted. Not that they're wrong or unnatural. Feelings are never wrong. They're just daunted by memories of unhappiness. I have to keep pushing past them, one day at a time.

I keep telling myself, "Just one thing. It's all that's necessary for today. Take one step on your own account to make things better."

Part of the reason it sticks in my mind so well is Dad gave me that advice. "Just one new contact every day," he said. I wonder where he got it from. He's such an achiever, how could one little thing ever be enough for him?

It's so funny—to receive good advice from one's father—that the idea has stuck with me. Not that I hadn't ever heard it before, but somehow hearing it in his voice, knowing that he is behind me in this, is helpful. He has stopped the useless prodding and interrogation, replaced that irritating behaviour with the dispensation of useful aphorisms.

"One small thing."

It doesn't do any good to let the huge planet loaded weight of everything that needs to be done crowd down. To take pride in a small step, it is a starting place.

So today after stuffing the laundry into the dryer I headed downtown to Fresh Start housing centre to see what apartments I could find. I wrote down a list of phone numbers and called most of them. Some of the places didn't have anything to offer. We're restricting ourselves now to three-bedroom apartments for $1,000 a month, utilities included. The list is short, but at least there are places available. I left several messages, didn't reach anyone who had a place that seemed to fit. I found one for about $890, but it didn't have a balcony. That's something Jon and I feel strongly about: having a place to walk out.

After that I walked over to the pharmacy and asked about light boxes. You can rent them for $60 a month, or purchase one for $275. I'll have to consider, ask my parents about it. A little light would make some difference, I know it would. Can feel autumn curling around the corners of my vision like blindness. Shadows tugging at the sides. A little more light would help. It's one small thing.