I couldn't stop. The tears were streaming down my face, I couldn't breathe. I was stuck. Literally stuck. Was this a panic attack? Panic attack? I don't have panic attacks! I put on my sunglasses as the tears continued falling and made my way to the Sea of Cortez. My life was perfect, I lived steps from the sea in a beautiful villa in Baja. I walked, and I walked and I walked, trying to shake this feeling. I walked to the far end of the shore and exhausted sat on the log that I would often walk to and just sit and meditate. My brain hurt, my chest hurt, my whole body ached. I wanted to scream out, but at what or who? At that moment I hated the world.
I moved to a sleepy little village called Loreto Bay just 4 days after I turned 50. I teach women's retreats and taught a few here and decided why not make this my home base and so without really knowing anyone I loaded up my suitcases and my 5 pound dog that I call Baja Bruce and moved.
My life was perfect, I loved the ex-pat community as well as the local people of Loreto. My life was amazing, I survived a harrowing childhood, a violent rape, stage 4 cancer and now I am living my dream life. I felt like I was going out of my mind, I was brought to my knees, to the edges of my sanity.
I started crying for apparently no reason, even as I write this the tears are streaming down my face. The world that I created began to fall in on me. The joy I normally felt seemed unreachable. I should be happy, I kept telling myself. I have my health, a dog I adore, I live on the Sea of Cortez in a beautiful villa and here I sit unable to move.
The only thing I knew to do was to go to my writing. I have always found a peace and solace in the written page, it is here I go to discover who the me of today is.
Is this menopause? That terrible beast that I have heard about so often, shuddering as women from my group shared their stories of those dreaded days. Can I triumph over this as I have over so many other obstacles in my life?
What I feel right now...fear, sadness and the feeling that I can't move out of this space. It scares the shit out of me. I know what it is like to face my demons but these feel more, more than I can handle.
What else can I do but return again and again to the blank page. I need to write, it is like breathing for me. I need to be gentle with myself and know that this too will be just a piece of my story. It will only be a chapter in my book of life.
For now, all I can do is breathe and write...anything else right now overwhelms me.