Big Feels on my Burnt Brain

7.1

(No recording this week, but I’ll be back!)

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We are nearing the end of November, and I am having grumpy days and restless nights. Culprit numero uno for my grumps = I still feel so goddamn burnt out. I could not be more annoyed about it. I feel like I’ve been such an angel all year long trying to get enough sleep (10 hours a night sometimes!), feeding myself (even when it feels so unbearable to solve the equation that is a meal three times a day), going for near-daily walks (brag), talking to heart-friends, watching fun TV (Love Island! Los Espookys!), not beating myself up for moving slower and producing less. I’ve been trying so hard to be good, but I did think that eventually my mind wouldn’t feel so completely weary, like, what the absolute hell?

My brain used to move at such a rapid pace, it was a joy to funnel that energy into all my little pathways of interest. Now it’s a miracle to put something cohesive on the page. 

Yesterday I was on the phone with my bestie business partner, and used the grouping of words, “reaping the percussions,” instead of the word, “repercussions.” Like, a little too on the nose for an example of how exhausted my brain is, but how hard it’s still trying. L O fucking L.

I do have small bursts of brain energy where I get really excited about what I want to create. Past me would be full-steam ahead already. Present me is collecting small thoughts and outlines in my phone notes — slow and steady drops drip-dripping into my brain cranium one at a time. 

One of the projects I am plodding towards is taking me back into my writing that I did almost a decade ago while working at the infamous Post Office (IYKYK). I love how 2015 Natahna could so accurately describe a moment in time. I’m annoyed by how good some of the writing still is and how cheap my current efforts feel by comparison.

Still, for all my grumbling, I wouldn’t trade my now for my then. 2015, for all it’s prolificity, was a sonofabitch. We may as well give then-Natahna her flowers. She needs them more than me, I guess. 

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JANUARY 22, 2015

The people around me keep having heart attacks.
This is not a metaphor
for broken hearts, although
dang it –
that would have been perfect.
In all actuality,
the people around me
are falling over with heart spasms;
but this has more to do with the fact
that I work in a warehouse of
middle-aged, aging men,
and less to do with the fact
that none of them are

in

love

anymore.

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JANUARY 27, 2015

I am eternally uprooting the soil in my mind.
I am continually treading behind and picking up the stones.

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MARCH 12, 2015

We sit in a diner, eating
bacon, eating eggs.
We are by a window, staring
into our coffee cups and
at each other—
sunny side-eyes and crisp smiles.

We are strangers
watching each other, hoping for a sign.
It’s a date,
we’re sure of it.

The waitress is sure of it too,
but she’s bored of it,
she’s over it.
She doesn’t care
that we’re young,
that we’re searching
and obvious.

We are anachronisms—
the only two people here
who aren’t getting a discount on breakfast.
The other tables are filled with aging men,
old men who laugh at us and shake their heads.

We’re the same young age, but I feel older.
I feel
old.
You look
scared.

You have that fear on your face
that makes every grown man look
six
years
old.

I smile at you
in a warm way,
in a forced way.
I want to pat your hand
and tell you
“There, there.”
I feel tired.

The old men don’t notice
that I am
aging and
that you are
a baby.

The old men are happy for us.
They are happy
that the locals are getting together.
They are happy
that you’re wearing plaid, and that I look pretty.

And you’re happy
that I’m smiling.
And our breakfast is happy
too,
with two eyes sunny-side up,
and three slices of bacon grinning at us.

And I’m happy
that you’re happy.
And I’m happy
that they’re happy.
And I’m stabbing a sunny-side eye, and eating the bacon.

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MARCH 27, 2015

I’m lying in the ditch pulling grass clippings and dandelion fuzz on top of me.
I want to hide from the world today.
Don’t find me. Go by me. 
I need just me and the weeds today. 

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Okay, back to me and my burnt brain.

Talk soon,

Natahna

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The Recommends: Love Island (UK), Season 5. Maura Higgins is why we have television.

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