The Grey Area

Sometimes I feel nothing. Not numb. Not entirely empty. Just … indifferent. As if nothing and everything matter all at once. I’m not happy or sad or angry. I just am. Existing. Only, instead of truly existing, existing with purpose, I find myself merely floating. Waiting. As if the universe owes me something. Some sort of sign or reason. A purpose flashing in neon lights reading “this way, Jess!” with a first class ticket to wherever it is I’m supposed to be. And for every moment I don’t see that neon colored sign of my purpose in flashing lights I float deeper and deeper into an internal abyss.

I don’t know where I am or if I even like this place. I tell myself, to remember the things that are important to me, remember the dreams I conjured up in thin air between sips of coffee and daydreaming, remember that I have a story to tell, and how will anyone know if I don’t write it all down. But … sometimes I feel nothing so I can’t write down anything. How can someone relate to an internal struggle that simply just does not “exist”?

My therapist says I’m still healing. Still vulnerable. I think her exact words to my father were “Jessica is still very fragile and it’s best not to test her to early”. So, I don’t test myself. I wonder around in my head all day. Exploring new rooms. Planting wild gardens. Eating new foods. I try and sleep less. Take my medication on time. Be awake more. Alert. Conscience of all my thoughts and actions. Accountable. Yet, sill I feel restless in a way taking a walk around the block won’t cure.

The thing no one tells you about feeling in extremes is: those grey areas, the time in between overwhelming happiness and debilitating sadness, those particular grey areas are not rest areas and are just as hard to navigate through. The time here does not stop. It does not slow. It does not speed up. Instead, time isn’t really the issue; it’s the clicking noise it makes. The clicking noise to remind you that no matter what you do, it will always be the background music you can’t mute. Background music you can’t really catch the rhythm to so you sway off beat and in circles.

I find myself in this grey area ever so often. Present though somehow absent. Aware of the things and the people around yet having no true desire to feel or to speak. Not wanting to be alone but I don’t exactly want to be with people. I have ideas and even a plan of execution but no will to follow through, at least for today or even tomorrow. Feeling an emotion with no physical responses or triggers as if happiness, sadness, and anxiety are all just concepts. 

I’ve noticed, while in this grey area I have only two options: to continue floating, feeling nothing while thinking about everything, until somehow I land on an extreme I can begin to level out or I can use this grey area like scrap paper. Find level footing and mix an array of colors until I find what mixes best with grey. To test my knowledge of colors, my intuition, and my logical capacity to reason and see what becomes of it.

Staying in the grey area, waiting for a sign or a reason or a moment, ensures that instead of living I am simply surviving. Making the best out of a bad situation but here’s the thing; I don’t want to make the best out of a bad situation because I don’t want to be complacent living in a bad situation. I don’t want to survive because my life isn’t some sort of warzone I have to seek shelter from. I don’t want to wait for signs because really, the universe owes me nothing. I don’t want to wait for anything, I want to take it, as much as I can carry and then some, because I deserve it and I am worthy of even my biggest, boldest, most daring dreams. Life is a series of tests and if I am unable or unwilling to test myself how ever will my mind be able to create new thresholds and higher tolerances for uncomfortable or un-ideal situations.

So … here I am, still in this grey area, no longer stuck here. I listen to the ticking noise that time makes, in no immediate hurry, to see what it is I can create here in this space not meant for resting but for creating, and testing those creations.