Il Panico dei Naufragi

 

Giuseppe Ungaretti has a wonderful collection of poems with the title L'allegria dei naufragi, the happiness of the shipwrecked. It's about the phase when someone has just survived the storm and is laying on the white sand shore, looking at the palmtrees, enjoying the sunshine and just being happy to be alive. 

The panic of the shipwrecked comes later. It’s when you know you will be able to get back to life. But you are scared. You don’t want to do it the same way as you had done before. And even though you understand and have processed the theoretical parts of this change, you have no idea what you will actually do.

Or when during covid everybody was like “can’t wait to get back to normal”, but you felt like that wasn’t normal. People, societies, humanity as a whole would have really needed to slow down. But of course we got back to “normal”, to familiarity, to our crazy hustle bustle comfort zone, simply because we didn’t know anything else.

And when, nearing the end of a serious illness, and slowly getting better, I can’t wait to be able to have my normal life back and not to be in need of constant help from my dear family members, but I have to admit, I’m afraid. I don’t want to go back to my “rhino mode”, the way I lived before my illness, doing everything alone - partly from trauma response, as “otherwise it’s not gonna be done properly”, partly because I had no other choice - stressing about anything that could go wrong. Illness is a way our soul and body shows us that it’s not the right way for us to live, and if I go back to that way of life, I might get sick again. I obviously don’t want that. But I don’t really know any other ways. So yes, I’m scared.

This is going to be something completely new. 

And it should be.

This is the third phase of life. Life after midlife crisis. It’s not the kind of life when we are simply doing our primary coping methods (fight, flight, freeze or fawn) like when you were young. It's not the trauma response after the realisation of the fact that no one’s gonna save you, like in the first part of adulthood, so you try to hold everything in your hands, to avoid the devastating disappointment that nothing on this earth is working your way. 

This is supposed to be the life finally on your own terms.

And then you freeze and are afraid to leave your comfort zone.

Pathetic as it sounds, but in a way I’m afraid to be fine, because the only way I know life is the way that made me sick in the first place. And I don’t want to do that.

I can do it my way. But what is my way? Ok, I kind of found it out professionally. But what about my everyday life? The way I manage school runs and shopping and cooking and everything extra. Will I not feel exhausted and overwhelmed? Or I only feel I would because I was not fine, when last time I had to do it alone? 

Ok, I did much more then. Finding a place to live and study for everyone. Travelling back and forth to Hungary every third week. Walking to lessons on the top of a hill from 6 to 9 PM twice a week. Creating a home. Ticking my to-do list and worrying about the unticked elements. 

Until I got into the hospital. 

When I was ill, I mean still now, I had the opportunity to do only what I felt like. I wasn’t able to do everything, but my life was in accordance with my abilities. And it felt good.

I need to keep doing this, with my elevated strength. I will need to keep staying at nr. 1 of my list, and then do everything else.

What I had done so far was doing everything for everyone, and then being sad and offended, because they didn’t give me anything in return. Not like “but now please sit down”, not like “wow, you went out of your way for me, now I’m going to do the same for you”, nothing. As if it should be others’ duty to take care of me and to provide me with appreciation for what I had done.

These are the first lines on my own to-do list.

To take care of myself and to set boundaries, not to do more than I can, and to provide myself with appreciation and evaluation that I indeed have done good. 

I need to keep listening to myself. I need to keep standing by myself. I need to keep protecting myself and being there for myself, so that I won’t feel the lack of not getting it from outside, and won’t feel the urge to solve everything alone to avoid disappointment. If I’m there, I won’t look at others with a feeling of something missing from them. I will just accept them as they are, not expecting them to provide me with the feeling of being held and feeling sad because it’s not happening. I’m holding myself.

If there’s anything my illnesses taught me is this.

To listen to my body, heart and soul. To follow my soul’s guidance. And to be there for her always.

I don’t know how to do it. And yes, I’m scared. But I will do it scared. 

Because I received a wonderful second (third, fourth, who’s counting) chance and now I have an opportunity to create a life I like. A life I own. 

I’m not just ticking my to-do list. I’m realising my dream. I’m making my fantasies come true. And in the meantime I’m taking care of myself. As it’s a crucial part of it. 

I only do as much as I can. One day at a time.

Rome wasn’t built in a day.

Neither is my dream.