Clench

I have now spent at least 31 years in a state of clench. I only recently noticed that was my main problem in dealing with my life after discovering that a newly tried activity or two could actually make me feel relaxed, a state that was almost foreign to me. Women like me, who can never really relax, who feel the worst could happen at any second and therefore must remain on guard, who cannot yield to the joie of a given moment for fear of the judgment of others, women like that, like me, clench over many, many things.
And yes, this constriction started more than 30 years ago. As a child, I was often told to suck in my stomach, something I did every day, all day, once I was told that no woman should have the rounded distended belly of a child, and god how I wanted to get over/through/out of the childhood nightmare and become a woman, so I sucked it in and have remained taut in that area since that time. I mean, under the layer of fat (achieved from living a rather decadent lifestyle for the past 16 years), I have ab muscles of steel, even giving myself a diaphragm cramp now and then because I can't seem to ever release that particular clench. Makes it hard to breathe properly sometimes.
When I did "become a woman," that state of being added another clamp on my physical nature: god forbid anyone would ever know it was that time of the month. Hold it in, hold in the pain, the emotions, the symptoms, act like nothing negative or distressing was happening every single month.
Oh, and when you get a little older, you notice how they mouth off on tv about these Kegel exercises, which you can even do at work. Yes, let's think up another way to get all the women in the office place to feel uncomfortable. "Darling, you don't want to wear a diaper when you're old, do you? Well, clench it up right now, do those clenchers every day, no one will know, just do them at your desk." Some tv and movie writers seem to think it's a big joke because I cannot count how many different shows I've seen that "gag" in. My 80-year-old grandmother used to tell me about her Kegel exercise routine, and yes she never had to wear a diaper, so I guess there's something to it. But she was also one of the most clenched-up women I've ever known, so maybe the Kegel just came naturally to her.
Even sitting here writing this now, instead of experiencing a catharsis or a release, I can feel all the different little bits of my body entering their state of compression. I think I need to write a poem about this topic in order to really impress on myself that I have much work to do in this area.
And don't even get me started on the various ways "the clench" has permeated my state of mind and my emotions and how I interact with people. That is a whole another blog post, maybe, in the future. One of those psychological clenches has been keeping me from blogging much too. Luckily, a couple people I follow in the blog-o-sphere have inspired me to keep on keepin' on.
Once I realized that I was spending an inordinate amount of my time in one type of clench or another, I began trying to learn how to relax more. It is a deep and bitter struggle for me, to accept a state of being that is so foreign, yet so delicious and rewarding once achieved. I must continue to do these new activities that help me achieve "the relax."
And yet, sometimes I think that maybe I should embrace my typical state of being, get to know it better, glean some strengths from it, understand how it makes me feel safe and secure to be so so so clenched, somehow in control of something when I really have no control over anything at all. I could even use "the clench" as my new coat of arms:

clenched human fist, armour