New Life in Florida, Lack of Poetic Voice (part two), Confusion That Never Stops

I haven’t written anything in a long time. Not on this blog, not in my journal, nothing. Lately my mind has become indistinguishable from a tempest brewing over a desert. So, despite the fact that I’m wearing acrylic nails and typing at my normal 115-WPM speed is nearly impossible, not to mention that my brain has turned into actual mush, I’m going to do it anyway.

I moved to Florida two days ago. The packing process was brutal, the seeing-all-my-friends-for-the-last-time was worse. It was hurtful and disappointing realizing how many people really didn’t bother to see me before I left, nor speak to me at all. It’s a painful thing moving a thousand miles and a time zone away from your home, and feeling as if no one cares you’re gone compounds that feeling. I feel alone in this place. It’s surreal, as if any moment I should be waking up, almost resisting the urge to pinch my arm to force my body to snap back to reality, but it’s not happening. I’ve had nightmares these past two nights. Horrible, terrifying nightmares about memories I thought I’d forgotten long ago that leave a bad taste in my mouth. More than anything, living here I feel dizzyingly free. My first night here I went for a run at midnight in the pouring rain–we were receiving the bands of a double tropical storm and tornado as a lovely welcome gift–with my hair down and twisting with the wind, and I felt euphoric for the first time in weeks. The rain soaked through my shoes and trickled down my face like icy teardrops, but I’ve never felt more liberated.

It both hurts and calms me that I’m hundreds of miles away from everyone I care about. Hurts because with distance, there is really no way to know whether they will miss you or forget about you. Calms me because I can sleep soundly knowing that all my bad memories are dead and gone. I am no longer standing in the wreckage of a storm I never learned how to get control over. I am living a new life already. Homesickness might be the death of me, but I know that with time I’ll find people and places that will matter more to me than that friend I lost or that coffee shop I used to go to every Wednesday. Someday I’ll find myself. I’m only coming to accept that Virginia wasn’t the place for me.

 

Update on my medication: I am still on the same dose of Seroquel and Lexapro (100mg Ser and 10mg Lex), and I think so far it’s working. Certainly helps me sleep. I’m hoping it’ll quell these nightmares tonight so I can stop waking up all but screaming.

Maybe I’ll get a poem down tonight. More than anything, I’m afraid that going through the shock of moving to a new environment has killed my creativity. Though, logically, I know that’s impossible. I’m hurting. Confused. Lost. And I’m tired. I’m tired. I just want to get it out so it can stop pounding on the walls of my heart–it’s really wearing me out.