Tension and Release

There's a lot on my mind right now, and it's going fast. And all the thoughts are tumbling around and bumping into each other, and that tends to render me pretty useless. Let's see if I can let a few of them off here. Maybe it won't be good reading, but as this has become my own pseudo-private space where only my future stalkers will go, I may as well go for it. Being my best self was always the goal anyway, right? If not always my most witty.

I am thinking a lot right now about the tension in my body. I am thinking about the time I tried yoga at work (a wellness seminar) and it began to trigger anxiety in a way I suspect was a PTSD reaction, so I had to leave.

I am thinking about my goals in life, and how so many of them revolve around music, and how badly I want to be a truly good singer. And I am thinking about the tension in my body, and how that may be holding back my singing voice. I am thinking I carry much of my tension in my thighs, my quads that have been painfully tight all my life. How I can stretch everywhere else, but never really there.

I am wondering if that could cause tension in my singing voice, or whether it is several steps down the causation ladder, if related at all-- if tension in my legs leads to tension up my back which leads to tension in my shoulders and neck. If all of that causes my singing voice to be tighter and unable to loosen itself.

But then I am thinking of that tension, and how scary it is to release it, and how it is only scary because my PTSD is my brain rewired to protect myself. I am thinking of the repressed memories, the moments in my life I am caught in-- both known to me and the unknown seed of the problem. I am thinking about trying to release some of them, maybe through yoga. Go until it makes me uncomfortable, emotionally, and then confront the discomfort.

I am wondering what I have to gain from that. I am wondering if this is the time-- now, when I am writing a musical and I want to be able to sing the demos, and that's why I was thinking about all of this anyway. Now, when I am looking for a new job. Now, when I am finishing my degree. Now, when I am raising my children. Now, when I am raising a child who somehow caught my PTSD.

I am thinking of the podcast I listened to about epigenetics-- how PTSD can flip a switch for people at a genetic level, and change the way your genes express themselves. How the theory is that that is why some people pass on their PTSD to their children. I am thinking of Ezra, how anxious he is. I am thinking it is my fault.

I am wondering, if I had faced this all, to completion, when I was younger, whether he might have been born differently, whether I might have switched the flip back in time to make a better version of him. A version of him who did not have to suffer, needlessly, the way I had to suffer.

I am wondering if the switch was flipped still before me. If my father's trauma passed on to me. And I am thinking of how strange it is that I am willing to accept that my father had trauma. How it seems obvious and natural that he did, even though it's never been discussed. Even though I'm not supposed to know what it was. Even though there are parts of it I'm fairly sure that I know.

I'm thinking of what I'd be like now if I hadn't had to spend my life decoding the mystery of who I am, of why I am the way I am. Of the trauma, and the tension, and the sleeplessness and the ADHD. Of my father. Of my ex-husband, whom I believe more every day is also hiding memories somewhere within his mind. Of all these pasts that I seem to have some unnatural understanding of-- psychic empathy.

I am thinking that I grow more certain every day that the ability to feel the energy that radiates from people is a real thing, that somewhere behind the mystical sounding words of it there's some scientific explanation that we will not yet know for thousands of years, maybe. I am wondering if we will live that long, as a species.

I am wondering, again, what I would be like if I hadn't had this trauma on my mind, all of my life. Would I have put my mind to a different use, a better one? Would I have reached my full potential? Or is it the desperate, speeding overwork of my mind that has driven me to the intelligence that I now possess? Like Alexander Hamilton, transformed by a childhood of tragedy into a genius who writes his way out-- can greatness only come from adversity? Would I have otherwise been an Aaron Burr?

And why is it that part of me is so certain that I am great? Why am I so desperate to speed up the improvement of my singing voice so that they can be featured on the demos for this musical so that some superfans, someday, will find them somewhere? Why do I believe--- really believe-- that if we can only finish it, this musical will succeed? Why am I so certain that I am exceptional, that I will be the one to rise out of the mediocrity if only I can focus long enough to find the thing to devote my full talents and attention to? To release myself upon, as the tension escapes me the way it escapes my fingers right now, all the while building as I think and type and speak each subsequent word?

Attention. Do I have ADHD, or a trauma-riddled brain? Are they separate things? Is it sleep apnea? My inability to ever truly give my mind a rest? Should I get a CPAP? Should I get a therapist? Should I just do yoga until I find the tension and then push through it with some of the Herculean will that drives me to do everything in life except the day-to-day things that need doing.

The rug I'm sitting on, I noticed as I was stretching, it needs to be vacuumed. Badly. But here I am, typing into the computer on a dirty floor. Because, why? Because greatness can only come from....some blind willfulness that blocks out all except that which will make me great. Dirty rugs needs not apply.


I don't want to go on like this. I guess I mean that in two ways. I don't want to keep this stream-of-consciousness diatribe, and I don't want to....continue to let my brain run itself ragged in the race to untangle myself. Surely, whatever brilliance that my trauma allowed me to develop is fully formed by now. Surely, I could be better now with rest, and the accompanying ability to focus.

But genuinely, what do I do? I want singing lessons, but would be better serving myself with yoga classes or therapy? I certainly can't do all three while I balance everything else in my life. What matters? What will help? What can I afford to cut?

I know, instinctively, that this part is important. Work it out here. Or on a notepad. Or somewhere in words. I know that, I've always known that. Writing this musical has it's own therapeutic rewards, but not enough. Not for this. I need to remind myself, yet again, to keep this up.

There are no answers for now. Except that it's time to stretch.


On with it.