It’s 9:20 in the evening, and I suddenly find myself frustrated. I took the above picture about an hour ago and tried using a photo editing app to caption it, “This is watermelon juice, but I wish it were a Bloody Mary,” but I couldn’t get it to work. Damn technology. Damn watermelon juice that’s not a Bloody Mary.
This afternoon I saw my massage therapist, and she said something I frequently say–“I hate winter.” And whereas I tried to be positive by pointing out we only have four more weeks until the first day of spring, I really am over all this dark, cold, and wet business. (I could feel differently about winter once allergy season kicks in.) My massage therapist said it seems like everyone is irritable this time of year. No kidding. Later I went to a coffee shop to read a book by their fireplace, and I nearly threw my man bag across the room at a kid who was witnessing to another kid about Jesus. Not that I have anything against Jesus. It’s just he was talking about him so loudly, it was difficult for me to concentrate.
Like, Do you have to shout? Even the baristas in the back know you’re a sinner.
Maybe it is the winter that’s making me irritable. Maybe it’s my recent knee surgery. Regardless, I’ve been stir crazy lately, just wanting to move. And whereas I can walk and even ride a stationary bike, I still can’t get out and jog, still can’t dance, still can’t break a sweat. I guess that’s it–I can’t do everything I normally do to blow off steam and work out my emotions. Sure, I’ve got this blog. I can say I’M PISSED in all capital letters, but it’s not the same as pounding the pavement, not the same as physically expressing all the little frustrations and irritations that build up day after day after day.
Last night I listened to a podcast with Rob Bell and his guest Nate Staniforth. Nate’s a magician, and last year I blogged about his glorious memoir, Here Is Real Magic. Anyway, in the podcast Nate said it took him four years to write his memoir, and one of the positive things about the project is that it gave him another outlet. That is, previously he’d been funneling the majority of his creativity and emotions into magic, and that’s limiting, just having one thing. That’s my point–we all need multiple ways to express ourselves. Lately I’ve been using my car horn when someone ticks me off in traffic or cuts in front of me. I’m such a people pleaser, I never would have done this in the past. But after five years of therapy, I’ve finally learned to communicate. Hey, watch where you’re going, asshole! And as one of my horn-honking friends says, “And then it’s over. Then I don’t carry that frustration into any other part of my day.”
Emotions don’t die until they’re acknowledged.
During a conversation about stuffing down and bottling up, another friend of mine recently said, “What’s inside eventually comes out.” Talk about the truth. Since starting therapy, I’ve had so many thoughts and feelings come up and out that I’d thought were long buried. As it turns out, emotions don’t die until they’re acknowledged. Once when I was talking to my therapist about something I was mad about, she kept saying, “Say more, tell me more, keep going,” until I started crying. Wiping my eyes, I said, “Jesus, did they teach you that technique in therapy school?” She said, “No, I’m just that good,” which made me laugh. Then later she explained, “We just needed to pop that pimple, and we weren’t quiiiite there yet.”
My therapist says that you can express your emotions in multiple ways. For example, if you’re angry with someone, you can honk your horn, have a confrontation, tell them to fuck off, go to the gym, or–hell–write a blog about the jerk. Personally, I think it’s good to have a go-to strategy and several backup plans. I also think that when we find ourselves overly irritated with the world around us, it’s our body’s way of letting us know that something is off. Maybe there’s a deeper issue involved. Maybe it’s time to rest. Maybe it’s time to start a creative project. That’s what I’ve been thinking lately. How else can I be creative? How else can I get what’s inside, out?
Until I come up with an answer, don’t cut me off in traffic.
Quotes from CoCo (Marcus)
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For me, it's important to hang on to this idea that no matter how bad they are, your circumstances can turn around, to believe that if an elephant can show up in your life, it can also disappear, to believe that just as the universe full of big problems, it is also full of big answers.
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