Is it just me, reader, or have our bodies and minds reached a new and previously-undiscovered level of dissociation just to make it through the days? I know it’s not just me. Sometimes, it can be difficult to remain so connected to the daily news at our local, state, and national level and go to work or wash the dishes like any other day. This is a reminder for all of us as much as it is for myself that we are not helpless, even though sometimes it can feel that way. We continue to email our elected officials to voice our concerns for new bills, we continue to spend or boycott companies for their recent actions, we continue to reach out to our neighbors and friends in solidarity. We continue to create. As the saying goes, the horrors persist, but so do we.

I was starting to feel mildly concerned at this daytime sleepwalking, though it is a measure of self preservation against the murky waters below (see depression and SI). I was worried that I was not feeling enough – almost as though I had lost my inner senses, dizzy and disoriented, like bees being smoked from their hive. My responses started to feel almost ingenuine, half-hearted laughs, small smiles, a quiet chuckle over a full-bellied laugh. Who was this gollum sitting next to my husband and dogs on the couch? Who was this creature that was patting their skin dry over the sink at the end of the day, climbing into bed, imitating sleep as people do. I did not know this being, and any time I scratched and scrubbed at the surface to catch what was underneath, waves of warning began to churl.…do you really want to open this up? It seemed to warn, swirling seafoam letters dissipating. And the thing is reader, I do.

I don’t want to go so numb that my life is a series of perfunctory movements and phrases for an unforeseeable amount of time. I don’t want to lose what it feels like to feel contented, to feel laughter, to feel…period. Just when I was about to book a new appointment with my therapist, I stumbled upon a new (to me) artist while on a discovery bend. As I let the previous song finish and the new song begin, I could feel it happening. And as the beautiful, moving song unfolded, I felt every one of my senses and emotions come bubbling up to the surface. Moved, again, finally, I listened on with tears welling in the corners of my once-distant eyes, and a smile cross from left corner to right, as my heart stirred and began to beat heartily. The skin along my arms prickled as the chorus and versus hit my ears, and I breathed a very deep sigh. I had felt as though my being had been cracked open like a walnut, but it was my own hand plucking the hard-fought nut from the tough trappings of the shell.

All this to say, dear reader, is that I hope you find your moving song, or chapter in a book, or movement of body in dance, and may it crack you open. May it return you to yourself.