The days are getting longer, second by second, and I’m not ready. Not ready for sun and warmth and open windows. Not ready for melting and thawing and blooming.
I want to stay within the cocoon, enclosed and wrapped up and listening to the sound of rain. Dormant and inward, dreaming and still.
It’s safer to stay stuffed down and numb, to not remember or be aware. To see strength in pulling up the boot straps and doing what needs doing and not feeling. To rest, safe, in that den down in the roots of the old tree, forgetting that above you the tree is pulling up life and budding and leafing out.
What is the definition of healing? Recognizing that at some point you need to also lift up and step out? How do you know if you are fully healed or partially or somewhat or as good as it’s going to get or not at all?
I’m so much more emotional than I ever used to be. I cry at everything from songs to anger to nothing at all. One day a few weeks ago I was talking to my husband and crying and I told him I didn’t even know why I was crying. I didn’t feel angry or sad and yet I was crying. I even laughed at the absurdity of crying without knowing why. As always, he so easily sucks up my tears in his hugs.
For me, being emotional has always been a sign of weakness and not being in control. For a few years now I’ve felt broken by two events. One was the death of Sam Grafton in February of 2018. The second was having to come to terms with some deeply personal issues that were forced to the surface by COVID’s masks.
I saw those two things as breaking me so that suddenly I could no longer breathe through life, stooped under the huge, huge weight of grief, and felt I had lost all control. I’m trying now to follow the advice that says I’m not broken but opened and placed on a new path.
It’s hard to believe that when I still see emotions as a loss of control and when I still strongly need to feel in control and safe. And yet there I sat, crying for no reason. I get so impatient and almost angry. I think, quit whining. You used to be strong. Do what needs to be done. Push everything else back down.
So many of us are here, in these days that are starting to lengthen, feeling that warmth that pulls us up from the safety of our dens. That sets us out along the path we don’t want to walk, that makes us face things like bright summer light that bring tears to our eyes.
I’ve always loved the rain. I prefer the cold winter season over any other time of the year. I love the short dark days and the warm fire and the feeling of being enclosed and safe. Whether it’s the reality of this love for the wet and cold or the analogy of wanting to stay down in the roots of who I used to be, all I know is that I’m not prepared for the change.
Lisa Stowe - The Story River Blog 
Aw… I know how you feel. Crying often or publicly used to make me feel a loss of control as well. Now I look at it differently. I see it as a strength. A strength in yourself. A sign that you’re comfortable in your own skin to feel and show all the emotions. I think it makes the person/people with us uncomfortable more than anything. As nurturers and women, we tend to want to make everyone as comfortable as possible even if that means we can’t let go and be ourselves. Now, I feel that we have to help ourselves first in order to help others. Just like the airplane oxygen. Hugs.
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Helping ourselves first is sure a hard lesson.
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Ah Lisa, LOVE this one, and oh, your pix, from that colorfully turbulent cloudscape over a snowfrosted hillside, that woodland creek, that forest trail (Wallace Falls?), forest snowscenes, woodsorrel groundcover, snuggered in smokey kitty, to THE MAN at the river, and that trillium – sigh of deep contentment. I love rainy drizzly SILVER days all year for all your reasons! Keep on crying – your sharing is SILVER. Pat Larson
silversheen1@gmail.com PHONE: 425-298-9431 (please leave a voice message)
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Pat, that trail is actually the White Pine Trail near Merrit. It’s a great trail to hike. Hope you’re enjoying this rainy day!
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Interesting question; how do you know when you’re healed? Maybe, when the wound has closed and you can take the Band-Aid off. Maybe, when the fever is gone and you’ve got your energy back. Maybe when the bone knits back together (which used to make me nervous because I thought that was a weak point. Apparently not. It’s stronger there. Who knew?). Maybe, it’s when you can just very simply carry on and not have to protect yourself (or part of yourself). Nevertheless, everything that happens to us will always be a part of us — kind of like your immune system or surgery scars (I have so many of those that I look like I was in the losing end of a knife fight and survived — barely. I don’t feel I need to protect those areas any more, but they’re always there to remind me, if I care to look). One thing I do know the answer to, though, is that when you get emotional it’s because whatever triggered it is Important (note the capital letter). Pay Attention. Your inner self will keep hitting you with the emotion until IT is addressed and a peace agreement is achieved. Emotion isn’t weakness. It’s communication.
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How did I miss seeing this reply? Full of wisdom, as always, Susan. I greatly appreciate your presence in my life.
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