*** BREAK HERE ***
OK, I wrote a short piece about it being a new day, but I was not honest about just how bad yesterday was. It was OK for the morning. My feelings are always a little raw on St. Patrick's Day, but that's to be expected, I have learned. Lunch at the church was good. Corned beef, potatoes, carrots, cabbage, good Irish bread, it was great stuff. But then the little band got ready to play and I made my escape.
I was sitting at the table closest to the guys with the instruments, so nobody questioned when I said it would be too loud for me. It would have. What I knew somewhere in the back of my head but not anywhere up in the conscious part, was that the music was going to trigger me. I had no idea how or why, but I knew I had to get out of there. I took refuge in the sanctuary where I could sit and cry in peace.
The tears really surprised me. I tried to fight them at first -- I did not understand them, I did not authorize them. They confused and scared me and I didn't want to deal with them. Eventually I was able to understand that I was feeling hurt, that it was old hurt, hurt that I have never fully addressed or felt, and I made the decision to let it be. Go ahead and feel the hurt, I said to myself. It will not kill me. Feelings that are stifled smolder and do unpleasant things over time. So I felt it. I let the hurt wash over me, not trying to understand, not trying to figure it out, just feeling it. It sucked, but only because it hurt, not because I was giving myself a hard time for feeling hurt. Yes, it hurt. But that's a legitimate feeling and I allowed it, and I won't have to feel that exact pain again. Feel it and let it go. That's what I did.
Did I get it all out? Nah. But I released some of that old hurt, that old shame, that old stuff that isn't really mine, but got stuck to me anyway. I released a little bit of the pressure and did a little healing. More healing will come in time. That's OK.
So, when I say I had a rough day, that's what I mean. Not just that I was tired or cranky.
*** Now back to your regular programming ***
Today is a new day. I am awake and still a little tired, but breakfast is cooking and dinner is in the crock pot for when I get home. I am grateful for a lot these days. I am grateful that the worst day I've had recently was about old stuff, not new hurts or issues.
I am grateful that I can cook -- and fairly well -- and that I can feed myself pretty well, even when times are tight. I am grateful that I have this little house of mine and that I can sit and watch the sun come up as I write and eat my breakfast. I think my next place will allow me to do that too, and I am glad for that.
I could blather on for a while to put more words down, but I don't have them this morning. I mean, I could spin some fluff out of nothing, but it would be fluff - that stuff you stuck into papers in high school that needed to be at least five pages long and you only had four. Yeah. So I'm going to stop now and go to work.
Stay tuned.
2 comments:
glad you got thru it. hope it gets easier over time.
How wise you are becoming. God (or whatever), the power of old stuff to color our present. As I sat enjoying the music and the info the musicians shared about their instruments, much brand new to me, someone was dealing with old pain that very same music evoked. The world is an infinitely complex place. I wonder how often we haven't a clue about what the present reality might mean to someone else.
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