When I raised my arm to brush through my hair, I noticed the shiver of unexpected movement in my fingers. I placed the brush on the bathroom counter and held my hands in front of me and watched as they quivered with restlessness. As I watched this unvoluntary shake, I felt the low-grade hum beneath my skin that has kept company with me for the past week.
I wanted to attribute this physical restlessness to an excessive reliance on caffeine, but I woke from a nightmare a few nights ago to my own audible scream. I woke with a start, my shout muffled by the soft purr of the bedroom fan, while my husband slept undisturbed beside me.
I don’t think caffeine is the real problem.
In nursing school we learned to study a patient’s vital signs for clues to the inner workings of the body. Often, an elderly or post-operative patient is unable to verbalize the discomfort, pain, or anxiety they feel while hospitalized. A nurse looks to the vital signs and sees them as the answer to an unformed question. What wordless message does the body send through the heartbeat, the breath, the temperature, and the blood’s pressure?
The hum under my skin, the shaky hands, the night time activities of my brain during sleep all speak of a hidden anxiety beneath the surface. I don’t typically suffer from these symptoms, but it’s been a difficult and busy few weeks. Nothing earth shattering has occurred, but all of the small changes, the friction, the emotions of all involved, the celebrations, the logistics, and the endless parade of unexpressed or wrongly expressed feelings has felt like soul surgery by way of a thousand paper cuts.
For good or for bad, the body keeps a record of each small irritation that upsets its equilibrium. Good things can be hard things too, and I have found that I must account for the change that good things often bring. The graduation, the new apartment, the party planning, the anniversary that begins with promise, but goes horribly, inexplicably, sideways.
When my heart is anxious the body sends its wordless message to remind me: I am body, soul, and spirit. Each of these elements informs the others of its joy or peace or stress or unrest. I need to learn the vital signs of each state, and give myself grace as I name and receive them.
I hold my hands out now, and they remain steady. The internal hum dulls to imperceptible levels. I am coming home to myself, but I know this is the ebb and flow of life. This is the holy work of being human.
