I’ve had a surprisingly okay… even going hesitantly to day ‘good’… couple of days. Yesterday, I went off to counselling appointment on about 3 hours sleep and no breakfast. Wound up switching appointments with someone in need and so found myself there a couple of hours early. I sat in the library and read some interesting books. One on the relationship between being queer and depression, which was a welcome counterpoint to the ‘I came out and all my problems went away’ common narrative that’s been dogging me a bit lately. The other I’ve borrowed to digest more slowly; a book on narrative therapy that spoke deeply to me. I’ve been playing over the past couple of days with completely reframing my situation. Recently I thought about my common belief – things are chaotic so I must be doing something wrong. I found myself wondering if in fact I am I doing everything ‘right’ in a difficult situation. The thought has stayed with me.

After the session I treated myself to a large chai latte and a sandwich at my favourite nearby cafe. With some filched scrap paper and a pen I caught at the thoughts swirling around inside me and sketched ideas of what might be going on with me, why I’m sick again, what I need to do about it. A line from a book on psychosis came to me – “Is it a breakdown, or a breakthrough?” I had a mental image of a horse growing from foal to stallion, and another of a caterpillar working hard in a cocoon. Sometimes growth is a natural development of what you have already been doing. Sometimes it means pulling everything apart and putting it all back together again. I asked myself if my distress was completely internal, or mostly being caused by my new inability to maintain my involvement in things in my life or to meet my expectations of myself. What happens if I let it go?

What happens if I accept that for the moment, I am closed for refurbishing?

I have used a framework, a series of approaches and values over the past few years to guide me out of a very lonely and desolate place. I’ve driven myself very hard, constantly forced myself to do things I found very difficult, reached out for anything and everything that interested me to learn about, joined every group, offered every assistance, made friends with everyone, and PUSHED so hard to make my life different.

This isn’t working anymore. I need to consolidate what I’ve gained now. I can’t keep expanding my responsibilities, networks, study, projects. I need more time to contemplate, to find new ways to approach life. I need new frameworks to support me. I need time to adapt to the massive shifts in what I’m working towards. Putting motherhood back in the picture as a possibility shakes everything up. It’s something I’ve wanted since I was 15. It’s also something that only last year, with fertility issues and approaching 30, I’d started reading books on grieving your infertility and letting go of that dream. Everything is changing and I’m struggling to keep up. I’m struggling to care for all my parts in a massively shifting world. I’m struggling to hear that tiny voice of the soul that helps me yearn towards those things that are truly important, those things that nurture me, all of us.

Maybe the depression, the getting sick, the distress of it all doesn’t actually mean anything is wrong.

I stopped off on the way home and browsed some shops. I bought a very nice pair of shoes from the salvos. I came home and took Zoe out to the dog park – not because I had to but because I wanted to. She loved it. I came home and looked up more interesting ideas about face painting. I made a decision about how I’m going to display photographs of my designs at public events. I had dinner and chocolate icecream and watched tv and did some of the dishes. Rose came by after a late shift at work and I painted her. I’ve been practicing my little white flowers and they are nearly perfect now. I was going to work on inks today but I tuned in to myself and noticed that I was feeling disappointed because I really wanted to body paint instead. I followed that feeling.

I’m thinking of getting a kitten. A friend of Rose has kittens they need to find homes for. There’s many reasons not to. But I’m home a lot, and in pain, and another cat would be wonderful company. I’m also considering signing up to foster dogs until homes can be found for them, to provide Zoe with some friends to play with. She loves other dogs so very much. I’d like to garden but the fibro pain is too severe.

I’ve read aloud case studies from the book on narrative therapy to Rose, and cried through people finding new ways to think of themselves – instead of as hopeless failures. I’m letting it all sit and filter. I’ve been involved in planning a party with a friend. I’ve got excited about buying UV reactive face paints to use at a goth nightclub next month. I’ve crept gently into bed with a glass of warm milk with honey and cinnamon, and a good book by Terry Pratchett.

I’m not in agony. There’s turmoil and unbalance and storms rumbling, but no screaming in my head. I’m thankful. I’m moving slowly, reaching out for help, withdrawing from obligations. And yesterday was a good, gentle, thoughtful day. Today was similar. I feel less destroyed, less overwhelmed. Letting go and tuning back in to that small voice. At midnight I took Zoe out to a local park, and stood up on the playground, looking out over the lawn like a green lake, and the structure beneath me a boat sailing smoothly upon it. The wind was up, cold on my skin and singing sweetly in the leaves of the trees. It feels right. It feels like coming home.

This is a reserve I discovered with Zoe a couple of days ago. I took washing down to the laundromat and went exploring with her while we waited for it. There were a couple of ovals with guys playing soccer or practicing their skills. It was dark and wet, we walked in the shadows at the edges of all these strangers lives, the houses with curtains pulled shut and glowing, gardens looming under streetlights, children’s toys left discarded in the yards. A possum ran across our path, from one tree to another. It’s another world, for me. Not just my neighbourhood at night, but a different place entirely. Different parts of me come out, different rules apply. The trees breathe, the moonlight sings on my skin. This is a place I knew intimately as a child, the world outside my window, behind the glass. The place the rain fell and the night had a scent like rain and earth and lilies.

This morning I wake thoughtful from strange and portentous dreams. I feel, deep inside, that call from my deeps, to find somewhere shadowed today, to find a different world and stretch my wings within it even if only for a moment. And also as I wake, returns to me the memory of lists, of things that must be done, to support my life. There’s a rickety complex of things that hold up my life, that stop me falling into destitution. A number of tasks that keep my world going, bills that need paying, food to prepare, arrangements for college and health and friends. So many needs.

The pull towards the shadows is a small one. One voice among many. Not the loudest or sharpest. Just a pull, a need, a drawing of my heart. It is the voice of my soul.

This morning it occurs to me that most of the voices get louder as the need grows stronger. I cannot do everything I have set out to do. Trying to keep house and make art and study and work, to connect with friends and care for my pets and look after my garden and keep my house. I constantly leave things undone, important things, like tax paperwork, like emails from friends I care deeply about, little things that cost me like books that must go back to the library like the need to buy more cat food or save for car repairs.

Most of the voices get louder as the need gets stronger. I don’t think the voice of my soul is like that. I think it gets softer as it gets weaker.

Constantly neglected and ignored, it fades. I wake restless less mornings. I stop hearing it. I forget about it. I get sicker. My heart feels old and dusty without moonlight to renew it. My candles lie disused. There is no pull in me towards shadows or poetry or other worlds. I stay in my little box, mouse in a wheel, running and running. I forget my name, my names, my other names that live in other worlds and drink the night and are renewed. I feel lost and empty and cannot remember why. When all falls silent in despair, there is no voice left for me to follow.

Maybe this one needs to be more sacred than the rest. Maybe instead you tune your ear to it, to the needs of it, the little pull inside, drawing you out of boxes, of lives, of worlds, and into a different place. Maybe each time you listen it becomes stronger, easier to hear, easier to follow. I remember that it was for me, that I would wake with the need to climb a tree, or find water, or with the song of a particular poem vibrating in my heart. I would stand in graveyards and cry, would creep towards ink and paint like they were blood and I’d been bled almost dry. I remember it being strong, and easy, a shining thread that led me out of labyrinths of other people’s makings, out of nightmare homes and schools that were like being trapped in someone else’s dark dreams.

I spend too long in the normal world, learning that language, speaking those words, playing those roles, responding to those names. I am becoming good at it, better than I was. I am learning to find places I fit better. But still I need to step away, to cross the glass and follow a different song. To be torn in two. Dual citizenship. To tune my ear to that small voice of longing and find strength and resolve to follow it sometimes, out of the day, out of my world, my name, my roles, and into the shadows, the other places, where I can eat the food, where I can breathe, where all the world speaks poetry. The light and dark of the moon. Where I find wholeness, self, possibly even god.