Being present for your feelings
I had an inner debate going on after sort of embarrassing myself the other night – I wanted to apologize to the person I was with because I felt a little, well, untoward. E suggested I apologize to myself instead. So I thought about what I really was feeling and decided I have nothing to apologize to anyone for, but I would forgive myself for not behaving as I would have liked to under the circumstances. After all in the scheme of embarrassing situations, the other night pales in comparison to my most embarrassing moment. Which I’ll save for another telling.
My niece, N, who is very artistic and who had coping issues at college in Savannah while studying art, came home with a Xanax addiction. The doctor there prescribed them to her for her anxiety and depression and then she couldn’t function without the magic pills. She ended up in rehab after a year long battle. She’s a beautiful girl, always has been, looks exotic like Eartha Kitt. She has a thing for butterflies. At the Thanksgiving meal today, I went outside with Abby Lane to rock her by the pool and N came out to talk to me. I asked her how she was doing and she told me she had a couple of friends pass when she was in the 9th grade and then one thing led to another and by the time she had started college she just didn’t want to feel any of the feelings she was having. I said you need to feel them, because when you stuff those feelings down they grow into larger than life bogies that come after you when you least suspect.
On the phone, early this week, a friend said she knows that she went out with one guy to not miss the other guy and that what was really going on is that she cared about yet another guy and in order to not feel anything for any of these men, she was playing Russian -man- Roulette. I said what if you just allowed yourself to feel the loss of the one man you truly wanted. She said, “oh no, wouldn’t want to do that.”
Feet of Clay – we’re all so human aren’t we? – and yet there’s something about the pace of the modern world that allows us to dissociate ourselves from feeling.
I feel scared I won’t be able to complete the LaLa because I will have run out of every available resource. And then I feel fear that my vision, living in the LaLa, walking out to get my rolled up newspaper and seeing the bayou every morning, will evaporate because like everyone else who remodels or builds, life throws a curve ball and a lot of people don’t end up living in what they create and all this pain and suffering will have been for naught. I feel sad for having chosen the coward’s way out of my marriage. I feel deep regret for not speaking up for want I wanted in my marriage. I feel angry for having allowed another man’s confusion to string me along for so long. I feel terrified my mother might die any day now. I feel guilty about work in general – not doing enough, not smart enough, not risky enough. I feel disgusted with myself that I can’t seem to lose these seven pounds I have put on in the last six months. I feel anxiety constantly over being a girl who just wants to have fun and a woman who wants to do something meaningful.
And yet, most days, what my focus revolves around are all warm fuzzy feelings. I feel love. I feel joy. I feel happy. I feel elated. I feel comfort. I feel beautiful. I feel loved. I feel passion. I feel pride. I feel……….