Mostly, I have been telling myself that there might be thousands of reasons someone, such as my ex, might purchase a gun. Thousands of reasons he might want to ensure that I know that he has one. A glock. Thousands of reasons he might bring such a purchase on a twelve hour drive to drop off the kids at my house in another state. Thousands of reasons he might choose to spend time with his son at the shooting range "for fun."
But he obviously wanted me to know that he has a gun. And he brought said gun to the state.
Any and all of these thoughts rattle and unsettle. Does the gun purchase portend some event?
I once again feel a bit of a space cadet. My old friend panic has come for a visit.
I'm trying to keep my reason married to my feelings, holding hands and keeping close company with one another. I suppose if he truly wanted to kill me, it'd make more sense to keep this gun-owning-status a secret from me. So this whole kit and caboodle is just another intimidation stunt.
And I definitely feel intimidated. Fearful. Anxious. Rattled.
I'm back to spending two hours at the gym six out of seven days of the week. Aiming to get strong again. I'm sure some of this is the post covid lockdown thing as I couldn't work out for six months. But more so this obsessing about how much weight I can push or pull is tied to my trying to feel safe. And all the gym obsessions time makes it is more difficult to obsess about how unsafe I feel.
And so I'm acknowledging it--the fear. I'm allowing it. I'm feeling it. And all the same I'm not feeding it.
Instead, there is and must be a way to carve a little patch of safety on the soul, hidden from all at the core. Victor Frankl writes that this little patch was how he and others survived Aushwitz. This little patch is the thing that they can't ever take from you, no matter how bad it gets, no matter how hard they try, no matter how much you suffer, this little patch can instead decide to find meaning in it all, even in the suffering created at the hands of the ex aiming to intimidate.
