OVERWHELMED
Lately I have felt swamped by random thoughts, and fleeting memories. They seem to drop in like Victorian matrons for afternoon tea, stay long enough to disturb the cushions on the sofa, and then leave as if loath to overstay their welcome. And I am left with only a vague memory of a thought, never fully grasped. Those zoned-out moments like my daily walk, my trip to the grocery store, or my time spent folding the laundry, are now filled with a cacophony of noisy, tea-slurping thoughts.
In the past, these visitors were not unwelcome. But lately they always seem to come by the busload, and their sheer number makes them problematic. I suppose that is the primary reason I am feeling overwhelmed by them. If they would only show up one at a time so that one could enjoy their company, then there would be some joy in that. But instead they all descend like a pack of starving tourists waiting to be entertained to tea at Downton Abbey. So tiring. They all seem to talk at once and never stay on topic. And one really wants to be open-minded and all that, but really it is so difficult to keep up when what it really sounds like a war zone and you are taking enemy fire.
Along with the buckshot of thought, comes the recurring echo of my writer friends and mentors yelling …. Write it down, write it down, write it down! Make a note! Send a text! or drop yourself a line … but don’t lose that thought!
And of course, by then the thoughts, or memories are long gone … never to be recalled poor things. So, begins another guilt trip for which I have over packed.
All of this is by way of explaining why it has been a while since I have written. I have nothing much and too much to say. I just wish they would all just be quiet for a moment and let me get a word in edgeways.
5 Replies to “OVERWHELMED”
Dear Connie,
As someone who is also exhausted by my own ever-tumbling and rum,bling thoughts, I am entirely empathetic. It is great when I am feeling free and joyful with lovely ideas but when overcome by immensely distressing thoughts over unpleasant people and their hurtful words, and their bullying and their dishonesty it is as if they are actually in one’s head. Perhaps they are. Hope I don’t actually murder them, as feeling driven to at times. That or suicide. Perhaps that’s how they get their energy, feeding on our thoughts and anger and hurt.
And then there are all the thoughts of the bitzy jobs I need to get done but can’t get anyone with a skill to do them and it is exhausting thinking of going through training to become a carpenter or plumber or gutter repairer rather than being an arty-farty. Can’t put it all on their shoulders, there are so very many jobs I can indeed be doing myself – reducing the mountains of paperwork, the very sights of which drain me….and little DIY jobs which I keep putting off. Just when I feel capable of tackling a few of those jobs, or of facing the ‘nasties’ to get them out of my head while out with our dogs, I then remember one more on my way homeward, and feel drained of energy and don’t know where and how to start.
Ideas – having so many of them can become a pest. I have often been complimented on my ‘ideas’ and asked where I get them from. Are those people who ask at peace? Not having much in the way of a stream of ideas popping in and making one excited could be enviable! One can have a marvellous idea, put that to the friend in all enthusiasm but they just don’t want to do that ‘thing’. So I get disappointed, disheartened. And they are irritated by my enthusiasm, as indeed I am when someone offers me a solution to my problem(s) especially when they involve going to some sort of holistic therapist.
Oh I wish I could just switch off my exhausting head and perhaps, stop my heart from hurting. There could be the up-side though: if our minds have become hyper-active, does that actually mean we are less unwell physically than we assume?
Those clever people who sit cross-legged and say OM, say smugly that meditation helps. HA!! Well that’s when some of my good ideas pop in – even pop right in with a solution to an issue or conundrum. Like many, I struggle to bring my thoughts back to a calmness for about a second or four. It feels nice. But I will tell you that the happy ease and calmness can last for about an hour after a meditation and I do rather float out of the place. (Thankfully the meditation hour that I occasionally go to on Fridays here in Birr is on chairs, with a nice fleece blanket upon or around the knees.) Yet after an hour or so, it’s back to the restless thinking. Those head-wreckers get their demanding way again. Mind you, our little Portuguese ‘guru’ gets us to do chanting mantras so it is NOISY meditation anyway. She said that by chanting whatever the positive incantation is on the morning, it stops the mind from over-thinking because to the mind, what we’re chanting is ‘gibberish’ so it is puzzling over the mysterious words…which may or may not be ‘real Indian’ or makey-uppy for westerners Indian….and thus our minds ‘rest’. There is something to this though – the getting of seconds of a break from a dominating busy mind – and a good long time ago I came to the sudden realization that taking a photograph through a viewfinder helps. Rather than holding the camera away from one to look at a screen – put the eye to the viewfinder, and especially for a photograph of a detail in nature, it focusses the mind away from the racket. The relief for even a few seconds made me feel saner again, when I was particularly upset.
Trouble is, a couple of the regular meditators on Fridays really EMBRACE the chanting and they sing-chant like music hall ladies (there are no men present) sooooo loudly that I have inwardly nicknamed it NOISY MEDITATION. I have to put bits of tissue in my ears to try to tone their racket down.
Having written the following to you before, yet either not-heeded, or dismissed for having too much on your trencher already, here again I offer my two busy ideas and suggestions if not implorings to dear, talented you. Putting aside what we know you have gone through and are having to cope with, yes I shall be a bore and an irritation for the simple reason that when people (dear kind people) have done this to me I have at times blessed their irritating persistence.
1) Package up your writings – in WHATEVER condition they be in at present and send them to a publisher. Then send them to another and another and another and another….In fact, send copies to a few agents too. Perhaps ask for the kind courtesy of a personal reply with any advice or suggestions or short guidance for the next stage. Please. Pay no heed to the writers group declaration that your writings are ‘not quite ready’. TO BE RUDE. VERY RUDE CONNIE…your writing BUGGERING WELL IS READY to be seen. It is honest in being your voice, what you write of in your newsletters is so very readable and reaches us very directly. It is funny yet serious. Utterly enjoyable.
2) PLEASE reconsider collaborating with us on The Phone Box Project, for a cross Atlantic exhibition. We will do all we can at this end to lighten your efforts and make it as expense free as we can, but hopefully, it will transpire (despite your irritation and wishing me to go away) to be rather good fun.
There you are. You can ragefully strike me off your mailing list now. Yes, well, it was a good idea when I put the latter to you on the phone and in e-mails, and yes, it will be extra work for me. But surely you might reconsider? Gerry – handsome Gerry was very disappointed when I gave him your last response and you surely wouldn’t want to disappoint VERY, VERY, BUSY, handsome, intelligent, funny Gerry Murphy, would you?
HUGE HUGS TO YOU,
Rosalind xxx
For heaven’s sake – I’m so busy in my head my caffeine fuelled finger zapped that THREE times You’d better get some deletions done or I’ll be branded ‘BONKERS’ Rx
dear BONKERS
As always it was great to hear from you … especially since your response sounds just like my inside-my-head voice. I have never been able to stop thinking long enough to try meditation. Kudos to you for doing that. I think I will try my mother’s method … a small glass of sipping scotch every evening … and of course more writing. That really does help keep the thoughts from taking over.
What can I reply to that but ‘Try Irish’. That is ‘sipping an Irish whiskey’ – and sometimes perfect for winter, with hot water and a slice of lemon. Or as so popular in our pubs, the lemon studded with cloves and a little sugar. I prefer mine without the latter. And a hot port is a very pleasant alternative after a day out in the cold and mud. Rxxx PS OK this is my third attempt at leaving a reply to yours. You could again receive three of this very text too.
Dear RozzyBonkers,hic
Indeed I got your three responses.
Will have to try the ☘️ Irish. Another weapon in the arsenal of anti-whelming techniques.