Jan
29
I’ve been going to the library again, after a VERY extended break. I was trying to think: when was the last time I went? It was before the shutdowns. Our library was closed for a long time, and then there was a much longer period of required masking when I just didn’t really go to ‘browsing’ places, and then — what? I guess the library just fell out of my routine.
There are so many things that were once a part of my routine, prior to 2020. I was much busier. I was much skinnier. I was addicted to a drug that I was absolutely convinced was the miraculous make-me-a-better-person elixir I’d been searching for all my life.
I got sober from that drug (again) in 2020 and there is just this enormous towering sense of Before and After, with everything kind of mixed together: pandemic stuff, early sobriety stuff, horrible endless world-events stuff.
It doesn’t always feel like I’m in a better place now. In fact it hardly ever feels like that, until I manually refocus my traitorous brain, because sober me is back to crippling social anxiety, isolation, chronic binge eating/weight gain, endless crises of self-confidence, spiraling/intrusive thoughts, and paralyzing general anxiety.
I often have this feeling of being stuck; rotating slowly in place, maybe. Looking at the murk of my past, looking at the question marks of my future, over and over, instead of simply focusing on what’s right in front of my face.
The first day I returned to the library, Dylan was poking around in nonfiction looking for music books and I was in the graphic novel section, doing a sort of quiet internal sigh of pleasure as I flipped through different things. An older gentleman employee came by me on his way to the desk and as he passed, he did something quick and oddly gallant: he placed his hand on his chest and briefly bowed his head at me.
In my mind, it felt like a sweet welcoming gesture, but somehow not just for the library: There are good things everywhere, you just need to be here to see.
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I’m so pleased you’re here.Those final two paragraphs are exquisite.
I’m always rooting for you Linda
Thank you. I needed this reminder today.
❤️
Nothing much to say other than I’ve been following your blog for like 15 years and I love it the best. I read each entry five times, just to savor the words you choose because they always feel so painfully perfect. Oh, and please write a book. The end.
Lord if this doesn’t make me want to weep. Those last 3 paragraphs.
Praise you; sobriety; and libraries!!
I’m so glad you were welcomed (explicitly!) back to the library. I hope you wake up some day soon and feel a bit more in charge of stuff
I love the way you write and put the thoughts in my head into words on the computer. love, love, love it. I used to practically live at the library. Got a kindle. books do not light up at night. I need to get smell the books at my library again.
You don’t have to answer this obviously (and you can also feel free to email me if you want) but I just have to ask because I experienced something similar and have spoken to SO MANY other women “of a certain age” recently who have – was it adderall?
Hey there — no, it wasn’t, but it super easily could have been.