The Weight

"What's wrong?"  Those words can either open up the floodgates or shut a person down for good.  Today, all day, I've felt a weight on my chest.  It's not heavy, just this oppressive, stifling feeling that I can't seem to point to.  I find myself afraid of failure, afraid of the unknown, afraid of money problems, family problems, personal problems.  These things happen from time to time, I know this.  It happens to me often.  I call it the weight.

Some people always seem to have it together.  I spoke to a client today who said he had purchased a home in Colorado.  I'd love to go to Colorado.  I'd love to go anywhere, really.  I'm a big fan of travel.  They say the grass is always greener on the other side.  My caveat, of course, is that the paint is still wet.  And still, wherever my life has led me in the past ten plus years, I still feel the weight, sometimes more than others. 

I had an argument with a loved one recently.  I remember looking out over the road from my seat in the car and wishing I was somewhere else.  We were passing an airport, busy people going to busier places.  I wondered if everyone feels this way sometimes, or if I'm just as strange as I think I am.  Perhaps its some remnant of a fight or flight response.  Perhaps I really haven't convinced myself that the grass really isn't as green as it seems on the other side.  I wonder if all people get the weight, if they all want to run inside. 

Is that why everyone keeps moving all of the time, from this place to that place?  From the office, to home, to the market, to the school, to vacation, to grandmas.... just keep moving, keep occupied, and you won't feel the weight.  Where are they all running to?  There's nowhere to go. 

In my mind, I'm running.  I'm running anywhere I can to escape the weight.  I'm the one of many who runs in my mind while keeping my footing on solid ground, even if it feels like quicksand.  My mind runs once, twice, sometimes three times a day.  And always, wherever it goes, there is the weight waiting for me.

Where does it come from?  Are we all lost, just looking for someplace to be, to belong? 

We are all of us running this way and that in our minds, in our hearts, while our bodies stay frozen in place like silly mannequins, all dressed up behind glass windows - all dressed up with nowhere to go.  Every once in a while, we're reinvented, given new clothes to put on display, but it's all the same window, it's all the same place.  

Simpler times.... I remember simpler times when I felt close to people, I remember feeling safe.  It all seems so long ago.  Perhaps that's where the weight comes from.  I don't know. 
When I feel like this, I remember a song from George Harrison.  It keeps me grounded, keeps me focused.  I wanted to share it with you.

Namaste
Thea

Beware of Darkness (George Harrison)

Watch out now, take care
beware of falling swingers
dropping all around you
the pain that often mingles
in your fingertips
beware of darkness

Watch out now, take care
beware of the thoughts that linger
winding up inside your head
the hopelessness around you
in the dead of night

Beware of sadness
it can hit you
it can hurt you
make you sore and what is more
that is not what you are here for

Watch out now, take care
beware of soft shoe shufflers
dancing down the sidewalks
as each unconcious sufferer
wanders aimlessly
beware of maya

watch out now, take care
beware of greedy leaders
they take you where you should not go
while weeping atlas cedars
they just want to grow, grow and grow
beware of darkness