Rock and Quartz

Time and time again over the past few months I have been afraid of the strength of my feelings. Afraid the power of them would dump me like an unexpected wave at the beach on a millpond day. I turn my back for a moment, hand to my eyes shielding them from the sun, to gaze up to the sand dunes(or my eyesight catches the bright umbrella flapping softly in the breeze) and I am hit from behind like an assailant.

I remember being dumped as a child as I grew up on the beaches south of Fremantle. The feeling of being tumbled roughly upside down and under and over until my skin scraped the wet sand of those shallow waters of the sound was terrifying. Sometimes my face would be scratched, or my side where my ribs and waist met; that tender spot that hurts even to tickle. Sand, which is only worn down rock and quartz after all, hurts when mixed with sea salt.

Feelings that dump me are just like those summer late-mornings as a child. Sometimes the weather heralds rough seas and the risk is greater that I will be tossed and thrown on the incoming waves. But on those days I brace myself for pain and the salt to enter the wound. And sometimes I am ready for my blood to mingle with the water. But occasionally the wave generates under the surface miles out to sea, invisible to all but the sea life (and perhaps the sky). And it’s this wave that gathers a power within it to knock me off my feet. And I never see it coming.

Like those waves, I have given too much power to my feelings all through my life. I let them confuse and overwhelm me as I ride them, my fists clenched against their will. Instead of riding with their power, I allow them to halt my breathing or make it so shallow my head spins. I allow my feelings to keep me awake in the dead of night when I should be asleep; upside down and under and over. And I let them drench my body and my nervous system with the chemicals that, as torturous as they seem, are also a delicious and dark reward for those icy nights.

This is what happens when I love. Too much. Too fiercely. Too soon. Too imperfectly. And I am sensitive to every slight or joke or remark. To every sight and smell and sound and touch. To every drop of dopamine and flood of cortisol. To every sweep through my system of adrenaline and serotonin. I am exquisitely sensitive to serotonin and dopamine and I shy away from too…

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