Can I Really Say This?

Maybe it is a Southern thing, or a church thing, or just trying to be a decent human being, but I edit so much of what I actually think and only let a little out in words. Now, don't knock yourself out of the chair laughing cause you just KNOW that I can definitely let it loose sometimes, especially if you are close to me at all.

But overall, and especially at work, I try to be mature,  to answer in an appropriately calm, upbeat manner, to say the right thing. I try to spin things in their most positive aspect. I try to use words like "challenging" instead of "damn hard" or "awful."  And as prone as I am to be direct with people, I really try not to upset the apple cart on purpose.

Although it doesn't come naturally I  have learned how to hold it together while everyone is watching and only lose it privately. Most of the time anyway. We have a sign in our home office that says "Keep Calm & Carry On." It was from King George (I think) during WWII in England and they posted this sign all over to help people keep some normalcy during those tumultuous times.  It's been my motto the last 18 months. Keep calm, keep moving forward, keep putting one foot in front of the other. Carry on.  This mantra has helped me not succumb to self-pity and hopelessness, at least not for long.

The down side is that this motto also encourages me to numb my emotions (though I'm pretty sure I come by it naturally). I've learned that I diminish unpleasant emotions rather than processing them.

This truth became very clear when I was on the massage table at our chiropractors office. Our daughter had been in a serious car accident a few months before and was recovering from multiple fractures in her pelvis and back. She had gone through a lot, was still going through it and would be for a long time (still is, actually, and I'm processing that too). Since I work in a hospital I deal with seriously ill and injured people every day. I knew that for all she was going through it could've been much worse. I knew that if the force of the car that hit them had been a little greater she would have been paralyzed instead of recovering. I reasoned that I was grateful she was alive.  Just keep calm and carry on.

Then the massage therapist said, "You know, it's ok to feel the depth of the grief of what she IS going through, of what ALMOST happened. This was a serious thing, this accident.  This is your child. You don't need to minimize it." And with that, whoosh, the tears flowed.

It can be exhausting at times. Sometimes I wish I could say anything that pops in my head.  My friend Todd says the funniest things, and I've gasped occasionally at his honesty. "How does he do that? How is he so unafraid to say what he really thinks?"  I don't have the answer, but I'm hoping this blog is a step in the right direction in unleashing some of that fearlessness in my life.  I don't want to be numb. I want to experience all the emotions of life and be able to process them in a healthy way. I'm not there yet, but at least now I see it more clearly.