Cuinn's Compendium

“Having your life turned upside down” is a funny saying. Ostensibly it means something akin to flipping over your desk. A terrible decision, now all of your things, your bits and bobs, have spilled over the floor, nothing is in its right place. Chaos reigns.

Recently, over the last about 50 days, I have found a new perspective on it. Having your life turned upside down can mean something more like, you've been standing on your head, and for the first time in quite a while you're standing on your feet. To even recognise that your head was on the floor, your feet at your neck, requires this change of perspective.

I've not always viewed myself as good at big transitions. In fact for most of my life it was my least liked thing. Things should not change. But with time I changed, and for a long while I viewed myself as better, good, even, at changes.

Progress isn't a straight highway where the only thing that matters is how far you go and how fast you do it. Though it can at times look that way. Usually when there is no traffic.

Progress is a lonely and uncertain mountain path, traversed on foot without directions. It winds and grows steep at times, declining until you can barely step without slipping at others. Sometimes it circles back on itself, and from that vantage point it might seem like you never really went anywhere at all.

I promise there is a point to this meandering, but first, I'd like to tell you about the land my mountain path is taking me through.

The Long White Cloud

I have been met with nothing but kindness since I returned to Aotearoa. The people here are interested in each other, observant, kind and giving of their time and food, funny, shockingly outgoing and talkative. They make good friends.

The friends I had here already, and the new ones I have met, all share these gorgeous characteristics. They are good people.

It hasn't been the easiest of changes to settle into. It is scary to be met with such an overflow of those things you look for in yourself, stored here in nearly every person you'd be happy to share words with.

I have been lucky, I think, to make the connections that I have. The circumstances here are so different. I can't say I know that language yet. Despite this I have found dear friends.

And I owe them the world.

Dark Clouds

Those who know me, know that I have struggled with my head for most of my life. It tells me unkind things about myself, about my work, about my friends. It shows me false realities of those around me becoming indifferent, or worse even, having always been so.

It tightens the back muscles of my shoulders until I feel mummified, unable to shake lose any part of myself until I am not made of flesh and blood, but rather stone. Stone stumbling around in the vague shape of me for days until a crack finally forms and lets me go.

“It isn't usually this bad”

In the past I have prided myself as something of a mason. When the stone started to form I had the tools, the hammer and chisel, to carve my way back out. Instead of days it became hours, it became half hours. I had saved myself from my own body and mind. It became rote and routine, 'til it was nothing more than a rock in the shoe while walking the path. A quick stop and fixed it was.

“I haven't had an anxiety attack like this in years”

With any art if you do not practice you lose your skills.

So rare have these instances become, so seldom have I had to use what I know, so arrogant have I been that I lost sight of those anchors I used all along.

When you have anxiety, when you have doubt, unfounded and irrational but present all the same. Turns out it is really really healthy to see people you know and trust and love a few times every week.

Who would have thought.

I feel embarrassed writing this whole thing. Its vulnerable.

Reflection is scary. You might look at you and see someone else. Someone you haven't been in a long time. I've seen myself as I write this text. The self I was more than a decade ago. When I didn't, couldn't, trust any good thing said to me.

What prompted this reflection was two days ago. I had become stone slowly. I had barely even noticed when I became so irritated at the smallest things, let it build up around me, ever so slowly raised my shoulders up until I had no neck. I read into things, things that was never real. Attributed to malice what should have had no attribution at all. Sometimes people are just busy.

What I did was let it be. I thought “I am good at this. It will not be an issue. Any moment now I'll be free again. The dark cloud will pass”

What I should have done was act. Tell someone “Hey my head is muddled. I get annoyed at tiny things. Something is not right.” Like I did all those years ago when it first started. I remember crying into the pillow on the sofa, calling my mom and saying “I don't know whats wrong but I need help”.

You can't pride yourself on skills you no longer have. And I want to be that person again. That me that can fix it. That can see the anchors and use them. The one that can tell their friend “Hey my head is against me. Can we talk?”

It is time to pick back up the tools. There is always work to do.

Aroha mai e hoa.