silence is sleeping far away

It's sort of like falling backward in slow motion. 

And it's sort of like standing at the end of a long hallway watching it grow longer. 

Like sleep without the silence. 

Like silence without sleep. 

Anyway you want to describe it, it is far, far away. 

"Get really far back in your head," I told BC one day when he was facing something he didn't want to do. Of course, I know it's not healthy advice. "Backing away" from the world is more disease than skill or coping mechanism because sometimes like any good sized hole one could dig for themselves it is harder to get out of than it is to get in.

Strip away all the other smoke and mirrors and this is the one thing it would all come down to for me: I struggle to avoid falling in on myself.  

There is a real name for it but I'd rather not use it.

Nearly every day I fight off the desire to simply walk away while standing still. Some days it drifts and is easily blown off, but at times it pushes so heavily against me I crawl beneath its weight.

I've been teetering on the edge for weeks now of falling into far away. Balancing the thin rim. Trying my best to stay grounded but I'm a little "peopled" out. A little too surrounded. A lot too disillusioned. And I'm tired.  

The girls weren't even with me last night but I packed up a list of what they needed, leos and jackets, little bras and stuffed animals. They messaged me constantly with cute stickers and spelling almost as bad as mine, all the way up to the point I told them to stop and go to bed. It began again first thing in the morning until they were delivered here in time for me to pack them all breaks for gym and drive them to practice.

These aren't the people that wear me out. The girls are magnificent. They dart and chatter like mountain wind.  It feels good against the heat. I would even say they are what keeps me from accidentally falling in.   

At gym this morning, they raced across the parking lot weighted with bags of stuff, stuff for gym, stuff for swimming, and stuff for a trip to the park. I don't totally know where I'll be sending them while I have to work but they trust I will get it right for them.  That I will make all the calls and the do the back and forth between the moms until it's handled. 

"Them" I am good at, me, not so much. 

I trailed behind them to use the gym phone to call BC and tell him my car had broken down.  Wandered around until he came for us, me and the car, the whole time fighting the urge to slip "very far' back in mind. Trying not to stress about things beyond the known facts. Most of all trying not to cry.   

But those are battles I'm just not going to win today.

"Falling was nothing, she could almost fly..." Beneath Still Water, mlb.