Road rash

I'm not very good at describing those deeper, more intrinsic, visceral things, like feelings and emotions.  Half of the time, I'm not even really sure of what I feel, so I find it hard to explain to others what it is that I feel.  I know what I think about situations.  I know my thoughts, and I am safe there.  But emotions...

I've always classified theme as volatile substances that have to be treated with care, kept out of direct sunlight, and only handled by highly qualified professionals.  Meaning, not me.  Emotions seem too fluid, too slippery, too beyond full grasp.  They are not something that I can easily understand or embrace.  They never seem to help in the decision making process: instead, they cloud the facts, and make what should be a black and white decision all of a sudden be a situation with 68 (or more) possible outcomes.

And let's be real, ladies.  Add your monthlies to the mix, and emotions become less of volatile chemicals, and more like a nuclear reactor already set to self-destruct with no override in sight.

While chocolate is always the appropriate answer in the face of out of control emotion, I find myself stepping away from the secret stash of girl scout cookies.  Not because I think I can survive without them, but because I rarely allow myself to sit with emotions.  I rarely allow myself to feel them, to allow them to be recognized.  I choose not to validate my own emotions.

So I'm trying really hard to accept my emotions for what they are.  I'm trying to understand why I have them.  It's hard.  They've been almost like an enemy in the past few years, and I really don't know that I want to go down this road and see what they have to say.  But they've been screaming at me for days now about being vulnerable... almost as if I had gotten emotional road rash, and all of the gravel had just been cleaned out.  Everything hurts.  Everything is an attack.  Withdraw.  Be safe where there is quiet, security, and a fuzzy black cat to keep you company.  Go into survival mode.  Just get through it until the new skin grows, and the scabs have washed down the drain.

I try so hard to ignore those instincts.  To go about my normal life, to pretend that nothing is wrong.  After all, I work in customer service.  I'm around people virtually 24 hours a day.  You can't be a grump.  You can't be off.  It just isn't acceptable.  Not by my standards, and not by my boss's either.  I don't blame them for that.  

So, I'm sorry to those of you who I've been more distant with lately.  I wish I could say this emotion just started for me, but it's been hanging around for a few weeks now, a cloud that moves in and out of the rays of sunlight in my life.  Not always there, but always on the edges.  I don't know why I am feeling it, but I am.  I'm not ignoring you because I don't love you.  I just don't want to talk about "it", and if we talk at particular times, I'm afraid that "it" will come up.  And I don't even know what "it" is, so it's talking about something that makes me so uncomfortable in the first place, and me being a hot mess, and I don't know that my sanity could stand that particular brand of therapy right now.  But I am sorry.  And I promise, I'm trying my hardest to deal with things so that I can get back to my normal self. 

So yeah.  Wow.  I'm ending this now.  So much for staying positive like I promised on Monday.