The Moths Came Back
Here’s What I Did Next
Photo by Michael Jerrard
When the moths first arrived, I was deep in caretaking mode.
And though I didn’t know it then, I was about to head into an even more intense caretaking period. I was in my head a lot. I was binging on self-doubt. I was struggling to feel like my time was my own. I wasn’t sleeping much, and I fought a feeling of “caving in on myself.”
When the moths first appeared, they were just in my closet, no other closets in the house. Every time I walked by my closet I would see one, or two, or three slim shadows against the wall.
I did not connect psychically with them. I don’t really know why I resisted. Sometimes I need to muddle through the old ways before I remember that there is another way.
Instead, I looked things up on the internet.
And I stubbornly tried to figure things out with my brain.
I was doing the human thing—I was making the moths mean something.
I was making them fit them into the well-worn stories that I had about myself.
Surely their presence must mean I’m doing something wrong.
If I had only cleaned better. But I had cleaned just fine.
If I had only weeded more things out when we moved from Pittsburgh into this house. But I actually weeded out a lot.
Something about me must be wrong, or gross, or dirty.
But I knew this wasn't true.
The stories I told myself about the moths’ arrival made me feel a deep sense of overwhelm and paralysis.
Would the moths take over everything? Would I ever be free of them? Would I have to keep adding more and more physical labor to my already full plate? Would life become an endless monitoring of my stuff to make sure the infestation didn’t keep growing?
Want to find out what happened with the moths? Click here to read the rest of the story over on my Substack…
