We All Got Wooden Nails

The pieces are falling, so quickly. It feels as though my life has become a tetris game except this time the pieces are falling at me and even as I sprint I cannot make them all fit. I wish I could find the pause button. The one to slow it down. I just wanted to tell one physician, but her squealing and forehead kisses of pride turned into the shouting of a need to celebrate and a small crowd of coworkers appearing. It felt awkward, I couldnt stop it. And now I am sitting waiting to tell my employer. Thinking of the new job that embarks in October but letting it be overshadowed by my need to find my ducks and line them up for an application for my real life.Everything is happening at once. My world is changing. I am terrified with undertones of ecstasy. The emotions are crashing in like waves destroying sand castles. So much is happening in every moment. I want to pause, to slow this down. To save the sandcastles that feel important but are not. To hold everything back until I am ready to cope and process. But sometimes all of this movement is coming from my mind. I can slow my thoughts down long enough to flow through my vinyasa's or watch a trashy show as I sit in the bath, but not long enough to really gain control.

This is for real.I need to start speaking it. Living it. Allowing myself to breathe in this new life without letting the waves drown me.

I am eligible for a provisional physiotherapy license. I know there is an exam in 11 weeks and 2 days. I know I have to pass for independence and the ability to practice fully. To remove the provisions. To achieve the success I have spent 8 years fighting for. But here I am, able to actually start applying for work. Eligible to actually interview, to treat patients, to breathe. I am moving on. I am about to open the door of closure.

I have been scared to say it. To admit this is happening. Too afraid to leave my safety net that I dont even like. Scared that it is all a dream. That I cant possibly be reaching the tip of the success I have yearned for. That this is only a taste of perfection to just hook me for a bit longer. All of the time waiting has mentally drained me. The failures deflated my self esteem. But this is real, I am doing it. I was good enough. I am smart enough. I was made for this. I breathe it. I am a physiotherapist.

I can win this tetris game.

I Want To Reinvent The Heartbeat

I am very unsettled and nervous lately. Feeling anxiety that seems so musty and familiar but also unwanted. Feeling incapable of doing anything as the paralyzing state of anxiety is continually setting in. It is like watching Rigor Mortis and knowing that it cannot be stopped, it is a process of death and sleep and must pave its path before anything new can occur. I am unsure if it is more painful for me to be aware of what is happening or feeling like I am suffocating in it. I am on edge waiting for something and nothing all together. I am moody and having trouble concentrating for no reason at all, and yet maybe it is for every reason.

I want to say I am happy with who I am. I have so much. A husband, a home, a job, a job prospect that holds most of my hopes and dreams. I am fit and spiritual. I have nearly it all. But what if the one thing that I wanted almost as much as a husband, I cant have? What if this didnt work out for the third time. I already feel embarrassed, ashamed, self deflated. I cannot handle the emotions that are tied to another failure. I cannot cope. I just need this to be my success. I need this. It is beyond wanting and hoping. It feels like I need to pass as much as I need air.  I just cannot help but feel like those two years almost never happened, that I didnt achieve a professional career because I unable to use it here. To feel like I wasted 150 grand for nothing. To feel my debt swallowing me with maniacal laughter as it knows it was for nothing and yet can ruin everything.

I need this. I want to say I can feel whole and successful without this. That there are so many other things that fulfill people. But I wont say that. I need this. I need to survive the next week and see the unexpected results. See a new page. Not the same one rewritten. My hopes are so much higher than I voice. I act nonchalant. Like I am brave. Reality is that I am terrified. That this week or so until I see words online or in the mail could really give me a breath of hope and fresh air or it could push me down the rabbit hole.

I know the truth is I will survive the emotional scarring of another failure but it would take its toll. All scars do. I could just use a win about now.

A Fear of Escalators

March 1, 2011. I first wrote on the overcoming escalators blog explaining the purpose of it all. I wrote of how I wanted to overcome fears. To become something more and to take hard paths when they were right. How I get anxiety when faced with a lack of stairs and how I knew being scared of escalators was something ridiculous.

Fears come from experience. At least for me.When I was young, I want to say pre grade five as I remember the cute little leather shoes I wore that day, I had my shoelace caught in an escalator. The problem was solved rapidly but the fear began. Later when I was 18 my mother and older sister convinced me to run up a down escalator. I was stubborn and adamant that this was not a good idea. Peer pressure won and up I attempted to run. This resulted in a beautifully ungraceful fall and a painful escalator trail of cuts of my legs. And thus began the real fear. Escalators become a place of pain and anxiety. I often would say I preferred the stairs for fitness reasons and not that I was actually afraid. Avoidance became my behaviour only furthering my anxiety and fear when avoidance was not an option.

Later, I once found myself in Vegas, a land of many escalators. I remember clenching the rail and focusing on my breath and the plan to step of in a fashion that would not result in injury. This continued as I allowed myself to feel controlled by my fears.

I dont know how it all began or perhaps I do. But I have come to point in my life where I no longer accept that giving control away is the only option. I have watched in myself and in my loved ones the agony that comes when we allow something external to control us. Sometimes it fear, sometimes it is a human, and sometimes it is ourself. Yet the truth of it is we are allowing ourselves to submit when we have options.

I became a child of divorce in what seems like a lifetime ago and there reached a point where I had to acknowledge that I could continue to be bitter and broken or I could take control. I could no longer allow my emotions and mental health to be a pawn in the shattering I saw. I stepped away and took control for myself. It could be viewed that I should have relationships I dont and it could be said that I am unreasonable. But my reality is that I stopped allowing my fear to define me.

I will not allow my fear of escalators inhibit my life. Just as I will not allow someone else to dictate my expression of thought again. I am stronger now. I will overcome these escalators.