"There Will Be Rest"

There Will Be Rest- Frank Tichelli

 About a year and a half ago, I was diagnosed with borderline personality disorder. People ask me all the time what that means. And whether it has medication. It doesn't- and usually I tell them to look it up. But overall- it means that the person tends to see things in stark black and white and has issues connecting to people, leading to very tumultuous relationships. They tend to have some kind of self harming behavior. When I say oversensitive......I've had many people describe this/me differently. Some people just say I come off as over dramatic- no...it does actually feel like my world is falling apart a lot of the time. I had a roommate say she reminded me of a fairy- so small I could only feel one emotion at a time, but I felt it really big!! I had a friend who knew enough about me and how I struggled with different things, and he would play real or not real with me (If the reference is lost on you.....move out from under your rock and read the hunger games). Usually the way I perceive things isn't quite true.....and is rather off in fact. No. That look doesn't mean that person hates you. That phrase does not mean your teacher has given up on you and thinks you will never succeed. No. One wrong note does not mean your musical career is over. And no. Practicing til midnight and stressing yourself into ulcer territory will help neither you nor the choir you direct. Just.....lots of extremes. Think of the times you think of extreme emotions- (More parable time!!)

• You wake up to a beautiful morning. Stretching and feeling at peace with the world, you roll over to look at your alarm clock....which tells you, you should have been at work an hour ago.
• You indulge in gossip about a mutually disliked person with your friend over text, only to look down and realize you sent said text to said disliked person!!
• You forget your words during a performance or work presentation.
• The feeling of being laughed at.
• Being forced to work closely with someone you know doesn't think very highly of you.
• Your significant other of a relationship you've invested in, and made plans for sits you down to tell you how wonderful you are....and how they don't deserve you and so are going to end this before any one gets hurt, it's not you it's them!!!!...etc. etc. etc.
•  You get an email about a lost scholarship, job, or a dismissal from a program.
• You drop (or loose) something expensive) 
• You get a call saying someone you love is in the hospital  

Granted I am focusing on negative examples- you've never seen happy til you've seen me surrounded by friends, comfortable and at a party. You've never seen proud til you see me after a performance I'm happy with (they're few and far between) or with a group of my EFY girls, who I seem to be proud of no matter what. You've never seen in love til you've seen me in the first few weeks of a new relationship (or with Jon when we are particularly, disgustingly in love...it happens.) But in the past few months I've had quite a few of the negatives happen to me. And what takes MOST people to emotional extremes, takes me to....very very dark places I don't like talking about. I would bundle all of these experiences into a feeling called angs-iety. (Get it? Angst and Anxiety? Ba-dum-ch!) If your a color person, I see these as a....dirty, muddy greyish, brownish black. Like oil. It just sticks to you. As a feeling- its when your stomach drops, and then tries to tie itself in knots. Ok! More parables. 

Analogy/Parable 1

         Did you ever play the floor is llava as a kid? You jump from piece of furniture to piece of furniture, (probably making your mother feel a bit of angs-iety for your safety and the safety of her decor) because suddenly the floor, your foundation is no longer safe. Your options are limited, and some evil sibling has moved all the furniture to the other side of the room- leaving you stranded. You look down at your 'island'....and think "Whelp. I'm gonna have to get comfortable here." That's what it is like to be drowning in angs-iety....you really see no way out.

Analogy/Parable 2

     Angs-iety is to my heart, what the sun is to a grape. There is almost a physical sensation of tension and....wrinkling. And then you have a raisin. No way to get back what you once had.

How do you make a raisin back into a grape? In real life....I'm pretty sure you can't. In analogy land- choir music. I have songs where, again there is almost a physical sensation of relaxation- massaging away the wrinkles and stress and tension of every day angs-iety....and even not so every day angs-iety. Think Dirait On. How Can I Keep from Singing. Vinea Mea, Barber's Agnus Dei, Jesu Joy of Man's Desiring, and the song I have a link to at the top of the page. I had a very close friend call me this week and tell me about.....angs-iety causing situations that no one should have to deal with it.....especially someone like....my friend. I anguished over it. I wanted to make them the promise that this song makes me....that there will be rest....everything will be ok. I wanted them to feel this sensation of *rub rub rub rub* ping! And the raisin is a grape again!! Like nothing ever happened! 

Another sensation that I want to describe that applies both to the song and the situation I would call..... defiance. Power. Strength. Capability.

• You get done with a really hard workout, and feel on top of the world
• You get an A in the class that you thought would be the death of you.
• That teacher/authority figure who thought you would never amount to much is forced to admit your progress.
• In an argument, in which you know you are defending the cause of right, you are blessed with what words to say to verbally smite your opponent into admitting your correctness.
• Every time you hear the Pokemon theme song(...maybe that one is just me)

Whenever I feel this, I picture myself as Wolverine, standing in the corner of the ring, and my claws just burst out. In songs, this would be Gaudete,  Didn't My Lord Deliver Daniel, Salmo 150, and O Fortuna. You get whispers of this in "There Will Be Rest", at the part where the author swears that "he will make this world of his devising, out of a dream." Another feeling I wish I some how could have communicated to my friend. You feel down and out right now- like a raisin- like you are abandoned on your chair of an island in the middle of a sea of lava, angs-iety. But there will come a moment, after you have been comforted, after the rub rub rub sensation, where you will feel powerful again. Where you will make your world of your devising, rather than being victim to circumstances and the choices of others. And you will put on your lava-resistant full body swim suit and go find and enact retribution on that stupid sibling who moved the furniture. 

Anyway- just some ramblings. More for me than for any one else. But if your reading this tell me- what makes you feel anxious, or powerful? What pushes you to your extremes?