Robot

I feel like I live my life in a series of extreme moments. I can't seem to be even-keeled, ride the slow train or drift on a gentle wave. No, for me it's either all or nothing. It's either passion, or emptiness. Rage, or joy, or desperation, but never just a simple contentment with life. It's what I'd like to train myself to do-- to be happy with less and to stop always "wanting" so much or so often-- but I'm constantly fighting my own instincts. My inner voice says that I'm giving up or quitting if I try to be content with how things are. My internal BS-meter goes off when I tell myself I long for peace or stillness; how can I believe myself, when I know what I *really* want is passion, excitement, mystery, romance, action, and all of those other things that exist far away from the quiet center of the world?

Lately, especially, it seems even more difficult to stay balanced. My moods bounce all over the place; one minute, I'm watching Ethan play with a train. The next, I'm over-reacting to something my husband says and stomping out of the room. One moment, I'm reading a well-loved book. The next, I'm practically immobilized with sadness, loneliness, and bleak visions of an empty future. It's been so long since I've felt completely alive in my own skin that I can hardly remember what it's like. It's as if someone slipped me a drugged drink, only they laced it with a serum that started turning me into a robot, one day at a time.



The sad thing is, I almost *want* to be a robot. It seems easier to not feel anything than to feel sad or angry or dissatisfied all the time, and I'd probably be a lot more fun to be around if I wasn't always blowing up at the slightest provocation. I'm nervous, though; I'm afraid of being a loud or explosive mom and wife, but I'm also afraid of being an emotionless zombie. I wish I knew how to feel things, but not feel them so much that every emotion has to burst through my frame in order to be felt, like someone transforming into a werewolf... It's like my feelings lie just millimeters beneath a tissue-paper skin, and all it takes is a touch or even a strong breeze to pierce the thin boundary between me and the world. Isn't there a stable medium somewhere between emotional maniac and unemotional robot??