This weekend, I wrote in bed.
It started with Friday morning’s doctor appointment that didn’t go as hoped and ended in tears. Technically, it was good news. The scans and scopes didn’t find anything wrong. They also didn’t offer any clues for the still-persistent symptoms.
The good news was overshadowed by feeling deflated. Heavy. My eyes refused to stay open in both senses.
It was just meant to be a short restorative nap. My to-do list was waiting. Instead, I slept away the afternoon. Then most of the weekend.
I don’t buy into that rule that says we shouldn’t feel what we feel when we’re feeling it even if we’ve been taught otherwise. What I was feeling was an ending without its next beginning. Weird. Because finding nothing was actually quite something.
So I did what I always do when a feeling doesn’t have words yet. I started writing. Just snippets, incomplete sentences, and random words. It was a start.
Saturday morning, I dug an old lapdesk from behind my reading chair. If Mark Twain and Truman Capote could write in bed, so could I.
Blanket fort, lapdesk, laptop, Mollie the Comfort Cat glued to my side, and naps. Wobbly set-up, but working OK.
Until the laptop refused to close. The right hinge crackled and popped out of joint. Shattered. Bits of sharp plastic littered the bed. The gap between the screen and the keyboard was alarming.
Oh whatever. The heaviness was dragging me into another nap. Mollie put both her paws on my arm and her chin on her paws in her “I’m watching over you” position.
Sunday morning, the hinge gap was wider. The screen sat crooked, so I sat crooked in bed to compensate. Would duct tape help? By noon, my back hurt like crazy. But Friday’s to-do list was still sitting there. Must. Get. Something. Done.
The nap overtook me again.
Late Sunday night when normal people were probably going to bed, I woke as if from a fog, like Briar Rose waking from her 100 year sleep. A necessary dormancy and suspension of time that kept her protected, isolated, and frozen while massive shifts were happening.
Monday, we took the laptop to the shop. Yes, it could be repaired, but was going to take a few days. The part had to be ordered. In the meantime, use it gently. Let it rest, too.
It was almost as if that broken hinge and wonky screen were pushing me to be still and face an invisible pain of my own instead of forcing ahead.
As if my brain, body, emotions, and spirit were begging for grace, not a forced fix. My brain said I “should” be relieved because the scans and scopes didn’t find anything, but my feelings weren’t ready for the disappointment of not getting the answers I “needed.”
When a laptop hinge breaks, it tells you that small, early signs of strain had been ignored, overlooked, or dismissed.
Maybe that’s true when we feel unhinged, too.
By ignoring instead of paying attention, I had worn myself out and nearly turned a minor, fixable issue into a break that could have fractured more of me.
Modern culture conditions us to push through. My brain and body know better.
Conditioning? It tries its best to tell a different story.
The laptop’s still waiting on that part. Mollie has barely moved. Neither have I.
There’s no rush.
Truly. StoryShift has never been about keeping up. It’s about meeting yourself where you are today.
Sometimes new awareness opens a door that we aren’t quite sure how to walk through. That awareness is the first step.
