If you're considering a move to Squarespace, feel free to 
Saturday
Feb112012
Unplugging the Cork
Saturday, February 11, 2012 
Listen to Daniel Johnston's "Don't Let the Sun Go Down On Your Grievances":
I sat in the bathtub for a long time today. I did it for a long time yesterday, too.
I don't know what to do with my hands. I build a website. I do the laundry. I pet a cat. I crochet a scarf. I take a photo. My hands are moving, moving, moving, but it doesn't feel like they are doing anything.
This is going to sound more desperate or more sad than I intend.
I haven't been writing much, and when I do, my heart isn't there. I want it to be, and I have a lot of words in my brain, but I am disconnected from heart to head, from head to hands.
This is February. I know it is coming every year, and every year it lands in my lap, at once heavy and so light it might not even be there, and I am surprised at how much it feels like I can't touch anything, not really, how much it seems like all of life travels through this hollow tube.
I wasn't going to write about this. I wasn't going to tell anyone about it. I was just going to keep on keepin' on until March or April or May or whenever the hell this gets better and the words came back to me, but it hurts worse to sit here wordless, so I am letting this out in the hope that it unplugs the cork. That works sometimes.
I have been doing that thing where I compare my baseless woe to everyone's woes that have perfectly firm bases. That person has cancer, that person is getting divorced, that person has to put down their dog. It is as though part of me thinks I won't hurt anymore if I knock the hurt down in size relative to objectively greater pains.
I am one person. I only have one set of eyes, and they only look out of this one head, and it is February, and I am having the thirty-sixth terrible February in a row out of my thirty-nine years. Fuck objectivity.
There. I'm uncorked.
Reader Comments (20)
love you, my friend. this time is to be gotten through, so i wish you that: the stamina to get through.
Understood. It is December that undoes me.
I see the steam from your bathroom traveling out from your house, melting and softening the cold air, reaching out to find Spring for you. We'll huff and puff and tell March to hurry. Hope this uncorking helps.
Comparing your woes doesn't change them. Yours are perfectly valid and you'll get through this, just as you have the prior 35 times. I'm sorry February sucks for you and hope you start to breathe a little easier soon. xo
For me, it's January and June that are the cruelest months. And comparative woe-weighing doesn't mean yours still don't hurt, aren't real, aren't worthy of commiseration and airing. They are. May the days speed quickly for you.
Love and love, to a beautiful Canadian.
Your thaw is coming. x
February used to do me in too. How the shortest month can be also the longest month seems one of nature's crueler paradoxes (paradice?) Now i live where it's sunny all the time and ... February is still hard, but not *as* hard. Remember what EL Doctorow said about writing: it's like driving at night with the headlights on: you can't see very far in front of you, but you can still get all the way home. So keep the headlights on, write down little bits, little bits, pick away at that cork, and...well, you'll have little dribs of cork on your floor but you'll have picked away the block and be streaming down the road. (With all due apologies for lots of mixed metaphors.)
I listened to a speaker one time and something she said I never forgot. Pain is pain is pain. Her son was in prison for life for a murder he admitted to planning and carrying out. She said that ladies had said to her, "my problems seem trivial compared to yours!" And that's when she said it. Pain is pain is pain. Just because someone else has something that is seemingly more painful than what you are going through, that does not discount your pain. Does that make any sense?
Big hugs to you, my friend.
February is also my low point. I can't think of a year in my memory when it hasn't fucked with me. I found out last year that the word for February in Ukrainian is a synonym for vicious. Those Ukrainians, man. They know.
I was listening to the news and they spoke of the very harsh, cold, snowy winter that most of Europe is having right now. I thought of the people dying from cold and suddenly any complaints I may have seemed nonexistent.
But, as someone else said, pain is pain is pain. And it's all relevant. I remember having a UTI and thinking it was the worst thing ever and then realized it really isn't (but it felt like it at the time).
Hugs to you. Feb is almost over, we're halfway there. Just put one foot in front of the other, head down, and soon you'll be through.
Me too. Even when I lived in sub-tropical Florida where January and February were like summer, I struggled. Now, being in the dreariest part of the UK, I spend these months struggling to stay afloat.
It's almost March. Just saying that makes it a little better.
Thinking of you.
PS, just noticed your masthead. You make me laugh.
Wishing you all the many things that bring you comfort.
(The count-down is on for birds and puddles....)
Wishing you all the many things that bring you comfort.
(The count-down is on for birds and puddles....)
Februrary is a bummer, no way around it. It sucked out my words, it struck me down. I don't remember it doing that to me before... It relieves me to read it here... Thanks.
Yeah, it gets rough at this time.
I agree with those who say you can't compare pains. It doesn't make sense to trivialize an inexplicable sorrow because it is not about something everyone says should cause sorrow. Any more than we would say X person should be sorrowful because such and such a thing happened to them.
You feel what you feel--what you do is a bit different.
It's ridiculous but I think one thing *is* just to do a lot of junk. Which you did. Writing this job post.
It probably didn't make you feel any better. But it might, eventually. I HOPE!
I'm glad you DID share it. You told me that you've been trying not too, but sometimes the weight lifts -- just a little -- if you get it out there.
March is coming, friend. xo
Right there with you, girl.
From December 26-Feb 6, my life seems to be in a constant state of limbo. I'm waiting...waiting...waiting...and the anniversary of the things that made that time frame come and go, but still, the waiting. Emotionally wrecked, completely unglued. Every. Single. Year. Yay for February 6th, though, because it's like a frickin light switch - ta da!! I'm good now. Hang in there.
I found your site after looking at the bloggies, and I'm hooked? You're pretty incredible.
But specifically in regards to this post, I feel very close to you in this. February has been the worst for me for as long as I can remember. Especially now that I am old enough to remember hating February each year before. Feeling empty and "hollow", like you said. I have been unbearably sad, and not writing.
The fact that others are going through this doesn't much help, because it's like what you said about comparing your pain to others - same thing. If we're all miserable together, we're all still miserable.
But somehow, hearing you voice it makes me feel a little clearer about how I feel. So thanks for that. :)