RealMental

, originally uploaded by Olivia Lazer.

Coming back to myself hurts.  I was frozen for four months.  Now blood flows back into the parts that were frostbitten, and I ache.

What I went through during March through June was a rite of passage.  It was a work thing, but it became personal.  I have never carried that much responsibility before.  I have never been the adult in charge, the one who everyone’s depending on; the one who is secretly terrified of failure; the one who has to figure it out on her own if she doesn’t know what she’s doing.

Forty people and a multi-million-dollar business were depending on me to get it right.  That kind of pressure, sustained for weeks on end…  I couldn’t face it all at once.  I got through by taking one small piece at a time, and trying to survive like that, in bits.  I simply could not look at the big picture.  It was too much

It’s done now, and I’m out the other side.  Crisis averted – the project was a success.  But I’m still waiting for my gears to spin down.  My feet haven’t quite touched ground yet.  My inner eye hasn’t recovered the ability to see widely, after months of chosen myopia.  I’m still missing parts of myself that I shed along the way for the sake of survival.

I miss my friends and family, but when I’m with them I’m almost too tired to speak.  Of course they ask me about the project, from genuine interest, or to be polite, but I especially don’t want to talk about that.  Don’t make me re-live it.  It’s too soon.  Let me rest.  Let me pretend for a while that it never happened, that I didn’t have to grow up that much.

I ache for the pieces of myself that I lost.  I mourn the days and weeks that were consumed by this monster job.

And yet, it has shaped me in new ways.   I have also gained.  When I’m ready to face the big picture, to turn around and see everything that I did and everything that happened, then I’ll meet the new me, with new pieces.  And I think that might be OK.

IMG_4992-2, originally uploaded by Polina Manuylova.

I hate television, originally uploaded by Eric Clipperton.

MINE, straight from the camera!, originally uploaded by Anthony Ruiz.