Comfort Quest

We went out to dinner tonight. It was a good time, but as I've written on this blog before, my ability to enjoy things is limited at times. As I went outside and felt the cold air, noticed the gloomy skies and felt a sense of foreboding, a realization came together for me. This feeling that has plagued me all of my life to varying degrees, this Thing that has been called agoraphobia, PTSD, anxiety and depression -- the Thing has the major underlying theme of an absence of safety, protection, love and warmth. Isolation is about more than protecting myself from people and PTSD triggers in my environment. It is about seeking comfort. There are times, like right now, when I do have the ability to feel some comfort and I really want to soak in as much comfort as I can. It is during times like these when an observer might say I am 'depressed' or 'needy'. More specifically, I think I am resting and recharging. I think I am taking time to rest my body and mind, to cuddle up to piles of blankets in my bed and breathe in some peace from them, to soak up any safe love and warmth I can from those around me who have some to give. It is not different from taking time out to eat when hungry or putting gas in a car to have the fuel to continue driving when you leave the station. I am re-fueling right now. I got hungry and I have stopped to eat. And I guess it is an adjustment period in a way, too. There have been so many times in my life when I 'got hungry and stopped to eat' like this and ended up horribly distressed when I looked around and realized that I was looking for food and warmth in a cold and barren wasteland too similar to the one I was born into and grew up in. Enter the distrust. Is this real, or a mirage that will disappear when I reach out my hand to engage it? For the longest time I have been so desperately hungry inside that I had passed the point of being willing or able to reach out because I was so exhausted and famished that I feared it would be the death of my soul and the end of all hope if I were to reach out again only to meet another wasteland. So pardon me as I adjust to the strange feelings washing over me as I eat and realize it is real and that no one is coming to attack me while my attention is diverted. Thank you for not judging me when you find me sleeping because I have eaten more than what I am accustomed to and have drifted off to process the nutrients and a bit of contentment. Thank you for not hurrying me when I linger in this place as I attempt to engrave it into my memory and learn how to make it my own. Thank you for not ridiculing any sudden tears that might leak out as I mourn the devastation left behind in me from all the wastelands in which I have tried to eat and all the snowbanks in which I have searched for warmth.