#giddy

Part Deux.

Muscles contract. My mind consciously relaxes each, one by one. This has been a practice since I was little – controlling my emotions, not through my face, but throughout my entire body. An energy release. It’s an exercise in calm and control, over and over.

Sometimes accompanied by squeals and sighs and smiles, it starts again when emotions brim to the top and finally overflow in a released cascade. Any attempt at focus is futile. For hours, days, weeks. This is the first time that the giddy has been weeks.

Giddy comes with change. Giddy comes with the unknown. It always has. Changing circumstances – school, job, city, people, opportunity. And not knowing what is in the future, but knowing that it will be different from the present, and it will be different from the past. And thank goodness for that.

This bout of giddy follows a long bout of sameness. A sameness that I thought I wanted, but became dry and damaging. I was becoming dry and damaged, until it seemed that my brain and my body had had enough. The rebellion was too loud and too strong to ignore any longer. Most things don’t go as planned. But thank goodness for that.

It was the often forgotten realization that things could be different. I’m not stuck. I have options; I always have choices. While turning that realization into a tangible reality comes with its own set of problems, it’s necessary for happiness, gratitude, appreciation, and learning. Always learning.

I am different than I was five years ago, different in horrible and wonderful ways. All the same, I’m happy to acknowledge that I am the same person at my core, and finally accepting of what that means and the fact that that cannot truly change. I’m giddy for the fact that I am more of myself than I was before, and that great things can come out of that. I’m giddy because I am not my job, but I do enjoy it. I’m giddy because I have the space to invest myself in what and who is important to me, even if I’m a little late. I’m giddy because I have a new plan that puts my happiness and enjoyment of life first, and that’s okay.

It comes in waves now. The contentedness settles in. And I relish in it. It’s the satisfying calm after an intensive physical and mental exercise. And one that doesn’t always come. Right now, I’m holding the other alternative at bay, hovering at 0° and only riding the peaks. The lows will inevitably come. But not for now. The sun and sky are beautiful today. Thank goodness for that.