Tag: gut

Life Topics

Gut Feeling

Jo McLaughlin

Staring into the darkness, I can make out some light coming from the sliders and the shadow of a tree.  The moon is full, accenting the shadowy clouds with a glowing outline.  I reposition myself to sleep, then open my eyes to stare at the wall.  The dog is on the floor snoring, as I look at the clock.  It says 4am.  I want to sleep but it’s not coming.  I fix the covers, roll over and make another attempt.  Still nothing.  4:30am.  Finally, I get out of bed and walk the house or start knitting.  The night is lonely.  This situation repeats itself for nearly a week as I crave the sweet comfort of sleep.  What can it be?

I have no answers to this dilemma, except maybe it’s in that dark place that we often listen to.  Don’t walk down that ally.  Don’t get in a car with that person.  A vessel that holds my fears, secrets, lies, sorrows, and occasional good advice.  This anatomical entity is positioned to be unreachable to the naked mind.  If I could easily access the residue that lives there, I could clean it out and leave the invaluable subtle intuitive relays.  But, for now, it is a burial ground of churning sadness and disappointment causing exhausting consciousness. Breath, please sleep, breath.  My gut is punishing me for hiding my emotions and leaving them there to die.  But they don’t die.

The gut is a multi-tasker and can hold grief, doubts and anxiety as well as keep you regular.  If filled with desultory sludge, it can hold enough weight to keep a person awake for weeks.  My nocturnal issues are obviously the result of having “too much to think” and using a churning gut as repository for all things negative.  I need to reach for help when I grieve and face my doubts and anxiety head on instead of taking big gulps to swallow them whole.  I believe a spirited eviction of sympathies will bring me peace of mind and a full night sleep.

I am getting tired as I type this, bedtime quickly approaches.  I’m still a little nervous that I won’t sleep.  I finish my wine and stretch thinking about things I must get done tomorrow; slight anxiety.  I will eradicate the anxiety tomorrow.  But, for tonight, I finally understand that my gut is the culprit and I am committed to clean it out.  I must create a strategy to release my buried feelings, relying mostly on the strength and tenderness of my own heart.

Good night.  Sweet dreams.

Life Topics

Dear Diary

Jo McLaughlin

DCF 1.0

Dear Diary

Today I was bored.  I drove to work making lists in my head.  There’s all sorts of stuff that I need to unpack; serious, embedded, moldy to-dos that hover and poke at my psyche.  Why is it these demands always rush to my conscience when I am driving? I’m the type to bury my head when I don’t want to face something.  The list is much too long.  I must call my son, file paperwork, repair my windshield, walk the dog, pay some bills and renew my passport.  You never know when a European vacation could cross my path.  I purposefully wish my list away, as I reach to turn on the radio.  A few things linger in my mind, but not everything.  Noise is bliss.

The center of town looks as it always does, serene suburbia, except for an ambulance parked down the street with its lights flashing.  I give it little thought.   Seems like more of an emergency when the sirens are blaring.  I park in the town center, and cross the street to go to the town hall where my office is located.  I notice some teenagers coming out of a convenience store.  They are laughing and waking close together, like I remember.  I ask myself, “Do I wish I were a teenager again?”  No.  But, I would like to be that carefree again, maybe for just a day, or just an hour.  My mental list switches to a work agenda, as I put the key in the door to unlock it.

Uploading video files gives me some time to reflect.  I wonder how my friend is doing, who lost her father yesterday.  I have to pick up some flowers for her.  Add it to the list.  Upload completed.
Who will watch these videos that I’ve worked on?  Will it be important to them?  I doubt people have “watch public access” on their to-do lists, but I’m hopeful.  It’s why I keep doing what I do.  Scanning the program listing, I notice a number of shows that I’ve produced and feel good about it.  I’m not changing the world, but maybe I’m reaching someone.  Just anyone.

So why am I writing to you Diary, when this boring day gives me so little to tell?  Because, some days are just filled with a sense of serenity like the cool waters of an inlet. Nothing to report. I should embrace these days, even though they are just a footnote.   No one I love is sick or hurting.  Work was done and was uneventful.  Demanding lists invaded my space, but I will listen to my heart not my head.  I tend to turn away, and evade the urgent anyway .  I just want to live life on my own terms, not on what is expected.  I want to choose what is important to me;  simply.

Reevaluate this critical list to see what surfaces.

I will pick up some flowers and call my son.