Caramelizing

This morning I felt perfectly fine. I felt normal. I felt composed, calm, and focused. Now I feel awful: spaced out, tired, sad. Depressed. Unsure of myself, of my identity. The shift happened sometime during therapy today. I could feel it happening, but I still don't know why. It was basically 50 minutes of silence and staring at the carpet punctuated by the occasional attempt to say something and making no sense whatsoever. It's frustrating to be drowning in these incredible, breathtaking waves of deep emotion and have no idea where they're coming from.

There is absolutely nothing in my life right now to feel sad about. I feel guilty for letting myself get this way; other people have far more reasons than I do to feel down. But trying to badger myself into pulling it together never works.

I have learned that the healthiest way for me to deal with this - because it happens a lot - is to just hang on tight and ride it out, and try to find some sort of non-self-destructive distraction.

Right now my distraction is fennel and onions. I'm caramelizing them. For some reason, that's always comforting. I watch them slowly, slowly, slowly turn brown and sticky and sweet. I occasionally stir them around, but not too often. Caramelizing is about patience and walking away for a while and trusting that if you simply keep going, what's supposed to happen will eventually happen.