riptide

a gentle indian summer exhales its smoky spiced cider breath easterly across this season of harvest. meanwhile, i experience the ebb of summer as a riptide so rapid that it threatens to pull me under. tumbled around and pummeled by a tempest of tasks, toppling piles of things, trips to take, transitions to tackle. a rather nontrivial transition in lab jobs upended my thought patterns for months, and then it was time to transition my tween into his new life as a middle schooler. somewhere in the middle of all that, oklahoma! forget self care september, i blinked at the end of august and it was october. i arrive on the threshold of this seasonal shift with additional vitamins in the arsenal, and a st. john’s wort tincture steeping on my counter. a friend posted something to the effect of, “if your own body doesn’t make enough neurotransmitters, store bought is fine.” i like that validation of appropriate use of pharmaceutical antidepressants, because there absolutely is a time and a place, and one wrestles unnecessarily with not wanting to depend on something outside of oneself. at this time and place, i conclude that a little help with inhibiting neurotransmitter reuptake is wise, and i’m going with nature-made, in hopes that some preventive care will help me achieve a better balance.

i know i am a step ahead of the game to be able to make this conscious choice. lately reflecting on aging and memory loss, the topic of neural connections has been salient for me; i recognize that if ever the clockwork of memory starts winding backwards, the neural grooves in which i dwell most now could be the ones i revisit. if i pay rapt attention to my family and delight in my daily routine, these are the patterns i reinforce in my neural firings; if i drag myself through a perceived grind with aversion and resentment the emotional backdrop of my days, these could be the negative default mode to which i someday succumb. (which reminds me to see also: surrender)

today i draw a line in the sand (figuratively but also literally, on the beach). i make a choice and state my intention to the universe to move forward placing my attention on healthy thought patterns to the best of my ability. i leave behind on the other side of the line, and release into the ocean, the tangle of thought patterns, resentments, fears, insecurities that hinder my wellbeing; something i have done before, and will need to do again. i let the ocean wash them away, and even the line, leaving behind a wide canvas of clean sand promising of renewal. the spiral begins again.