Last weekend I got super antsy. It was a classic Single-When-All-Your-Friends-Are-Ensconced-In-Relationships scenario: I’d rung around everyone I knew, trying to fill out my weekend with activity…and everyone was busy…with husbands and kids and family barbeques and trips to Bunnings. Or whatever. And I felt abandoned. Then I felt like a loser for caring.
And so on it spiraled.
I work hard to not be a whining single. I largely find single life pretty ace. But something in me was craving intimacy and company. I was needy and the planet could smell it. A Sunday night buddy. I just want someone to watch a DVD on the couch with! Is this asking too much??!!
And, as my antsyiness descended: If I didn’t call my mates to organise catching up and connecting, would anyone call me? If I died…would anyone notice? How long would it take to find my corpse? If a single falls in the forest and no one is around to care, do they make a sound?
Sunday morning, however, I got a grip, got on a train up north and did one of my bush excursions. Fling yourself into bush. Climb a tree. I once had this edict taped to the back of my bedroom door for just such antsy moments.
Life was against me, however. The Northern line was undergoing work, so it took me four trains and a bus to get to the starting point. I’d eaten too much for breakfast and felt heavy. The weather turned. I could’ve given up. But I persevered.
Finally, two hours later with rain imminent, I entered the bush, not a soul in sight. Within minutes my whole energy shifted. I unfurled. I came back home to myself.
And I realized this: I hadn’t been craving other people. I’d been craving me. My little Silly Season-frazzled soul wanted to be taken care of by… me. It wanted to be carted off into the bush, where it feels most at home in the world, for some free thinking and the rhythmic caressing of provided by walking.
Have you noticed that when we get needy and that terrible abandoned feeling creeps in, nothing works out? Right when you need company and care the most, people smell your desperation and flee. Trains stop. Thunderclouds roll in. The abandonment intensifies. It’s cruel, it really is.
But if we get still and raw and honest we can realize what’s going on: our soul rejects everything in an effort to get what it needs. It sabotages. It smells and repels everything else. Until, finally, exhausted and hurt, we get the message. And we take our soul on a little excursion.
It’s good to sit back when we get agitated and ask ourselves what’s really going on. What am I really needing? Perhaps what I need is right here.
PS if you’re after a great technique for getting closer to yourself, this meditation technique where you sit next to yourself really works. Perfect for this time of year when our souls are fragmented.
PPS Happy Christmas everyone. We’re shutting down from today. I’m heading bush for a bit. I hope you all have restful, soul-caressing breaks with family and friends. See you January 6.
