#19 Pace Yourself

May 2023 | West Chester, Pennsylvania

It was a whole week before I became cognizant of the pain in my legs, of the creeping aches, the creaking joints. Unused to the urgency with which they were goaded into movement. Until, like a hamster on a wheel, all they knew was movement. Endless movement.

Movement was all I had. See, I’d taken to pacing the upstairs rooms whenever I felt anxious, which these days was uncomfortably often. I’d wake up at seven  – almost on the dot  – because my body still believed I was in Yerevan. And for a brief moment, before my mind had the chance to catch up with the body, I’d see only morning light, and revel in the stillness. And then my eyes would open to the backyard view I’d known since childhood, and I’d remember where I was. Remember that it wasn’t where I wanted to be. The backyard was as dull as it had always been. And Yerevan and everyone in it was thousands of miles away.

And the discomfort would bloom, to the edges of my mind and beyond, making its way into the body, traveling down my throat before settling into my stomach. And I’d swing my feet from the bed onto the floor, and start pacing.

Down the stairs and into the kitchen, past the dining room table until I reached the family room, where I could walk the perimeter of the great big rug. And begin talking aloud, to grasp whatever strand of a memory or thought or feeling my mind had pulled at earlier that morning, and try to find its route, and try to find where it ended. Try to follow chains of hypotheticals that had taken hold of my mind, and shake them loose. There was no sense in treating hypotheticals like fact. This would last anywhere from thirty minutes to an hour and a half. 

Still, I was efficient. I could get in a solid session early in the morning, before work even started. Efficiency. Productivity. You can break down, yes, but not on company time.

In fact, the work was welcome. An effective distraction from my restlessness. A reason for me to sit back down, or I might otherwise spend the entire day pacing and pacing and pacing. 

One session was often not enough. And sometime around lunch I’d be off again, treading briskly in my bare feet, limiting myself to the upstairs so the people downstairs wouldn’t think me strange. Into my brother’s room, back into mine. I was particularly fond of pacing the hardwood floorboards of the master bedroom, with more floor space to cover and a bathroom en suite. Rustling up the rugs with my feet, my padded steps growing more frantic in pace as the thoughts started racing, disturbing my mother, who could hear them from the home office one floor down.

The pacing was all I could do to keep from breaking down. The anxiety – bubbling and boiling, ready to explode – could not live in my body – it would kill me. So as my mind began running with it, my feet tried to run it off, tried to expel it, to deposit it into the floorboards that my mom could hear creaking and sputtering from downstairs.

Expel the excess. Until I was calm enough to sit down again and work. 

Until the work day was done, and I could go for longer walks around the neighborhood. And catch up with a friend for an hour or so. I’d return home, sore as when I’d awoken. Lethargic, tired, too tired to house a racing mind any longer.

This is wellness, I thought to myself, and laughed bitterly. 

If you’d like to go back and read my past musings and meltdowns, hit this link.