My Hair Won’t Leave Me Alone

I’m thinking of the snake skin I found in the wood pile yesterday.

If that snake is still alive, it’s hibernating right now.  But how good it must have felt to sluff off that old skin.  To wriggle and push and climb out of its old self, and emerge soft and naked and new.

Then leave the drying skin behind, not giving it a second thought, in the woodpile.

I can’t get far enough away from myself today.

The feel of my clothes touching my body is confining.  My hair won’t leave me alone.

I want to shave it all off.

I want to crawl out of my skin.

I run, instead of walking, through the snow hoping to leave myself behind.

I wonder how  whatever is inside of me, making me clench my jaw and hold my hands in tight little fists, will find its way out.

Still I go to work.  Piecing bits of fabric together so even I am fooled into thinking the person who chose these colors and patterns must have been happy, maybe even joyous.

So there’s  hope.  If I can create such delight, it must still be somewhere inside of me.

I’ve been though this enough times to know that tomorrow, maybe even later tonight, it will be better. I will feel different.

But until then, I bite off the nail from my index finger, trying to get down to the bone.

 

12 thoughts on “My Hair Won’t Leave Me Alone

  1. I think we feel weird stuff like this when something old and done is working its way up and out. Anxious and squirrely and all manner of creative ick until it can finally get through and out our skin.

    Snakes may have it easier, it is built into their system to do a good regular shedding. Birthdays seem to have some scrubbing “action” even if we don’t get overly into them!

  2. Ooooh, I know this feeling, intimately, Maria. It’s too hot, or too cold. Things smell divine, or they pierce my brain, and install a bad smell in there that I cannot get out, no matter how hard I try. It’s too peopley or too quiet. None of my clothing is soft enough. Even people talking to me, in a normal voice, can make my eardrums drum – that is a REAL feeling. I feel trapped. Those who are not sensitive like this, will never understand. It was only through therapy that even I was able to understand what this is: the life of a highly sensitive person. It’s how I am wired. I came to know I am not broken or defective. I learned that I spent most of my life trying to survive situations that came at me, with no defenses, no tools. I have tools now! Tools such as ear plugs, walking away, walking outside, asking myself “Is this fear real?” asking others for help, keeping toxic people out of my life, prayer and meditation. The whole thing used to exhaust me, but now I am aware of it and can choose some tools and not just survive, but thrive. And sometimes I can’t. Then I just survive the best I can. Progress rather than perfection!!

    1. You write such detailed and enlightening descriptions of what you are feeling Karla. It’s that kind of awareness that makes life livable. Thanks for your words.

  3. I love your drawings and how you seem to float above it all. Wouldn’t it be nice if we could really do that. Your comment about biting your nail reminded me of a story. When I was a child, I bit my fingernails down to the quick. I never remember having nails then, they were always bitten away. My mother was not kind to me and made fun of me about many things including the bitten nails. This continued until I went to college. About two weeks after I got there, I looked down and was amazed to see that I had fingernails. I was actually stunned. I had not bitten them one time since I got there and have not since. It had to be the stress of living at home. It shows up in mysterious ways. Blessings.

  4. sometimes the body knows when something old needs to be released
    and it is signaling the mind and spirit to just let go. Talk to your skin
    and hair and ask what they need to tell you.

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