Oh, To Be a Hot Bubbly Mess of Sticky... Emotions

Dear Molly,

It's funny -- I remember hiding in the bathroom often, but that detail about opening the drawers to block the door had gotten away from me. Our readers who aren't familiar with the house we grew up in may be wondering why we chose the bathroom, of all rooms, to hide in. The bathrooms were the only rooms in the house with locks on the doors - ha! It's ironic, though, thinking back, that we thought a slab of wood, a push-button lock, and a few pulled-out drawers could keep the storm outside from reaching us. In a way, it did, and I remember feeling very safe in the bathroom with you.

But, like all homes, there are leaks in walls, windows, and doors, and the rains inevitably find their way through them. It's odd that I told you not to cry when I myself am the biggest cry-baby of them all. And I was most likely crying at the time, too -- probably worse than you were.

As you already know, I've been seeing an acupuncturist for the last year, on account of the daily attacks of chronic idiopathic urticaria and angioedema -- or, as the layman calls it, chronic hives and facial swelling. (Which, by the way, I can happily say have subsided almost completely over the past few months, knock on wood.) Anyway, one day, after examining my tongue -- which in Chinese medicine is the most telling gauge of qi, or energy flow, in the body -- my acupuncturist asked whether I had been feeling sad, and if I had been refraining from letting myself feel it. I had, in fact, been fighting the urge to cry all day, but moreover, the sadness I was feeling had a strangely inexpressible quality to it. Usually, she puts a bean bag over my eyes for the duration of the session, but that day, she explained to me that she was going to do something called a cathartic treatment, which would require my eyes to be free from cover due to the simple fact that she was going to induce tears.

I know, this sounds slightly weird -- and kind of pathetic, perhaps -- but no sooner had she dimmed the lights and left the room than I had to make use of the tissue she had placed in my left hand. I cried. But a good kind of cry. I couldn't stop crying for a good ten minutes. When the tears subsided, my heart rate slowed, my breathing grew deeper from my abdomen, and I fell very easily into that meditative, zen-like state it usually takes me about 20 minutes to get to during regular sessions. At the end of my 50-minute session, I went back to work with a clear head -- not cured, for sure, of that sadness, but released from it -- and better able to comprehend and deal with it.

Here's a memory -- my own, but it's a common one, I'm sure -- after the jump.

Are you familiar at all with the Ferber method for comforting crying infants at bedtime? (I've spent a lot of time in the last year, as you well know, with a lovely little baby, so I've become quite familiarized with such things.) It strikes me as similar to the cathartic treatment described above. When you leave the baby to go to sleep at night, and it persistently cries, you return to its room to comfort it in increasing intervals every night. In this way, the baby learns to accustom itself to its own rhythm, and consequently, begins to comfort itself.

You're familiar with the term "crying oneself to sleep," I'm sure. I have a distinct memory of being little and crying so much that my eyes literally would not stay open. After crying for twenty minutes, I'd let go of one great big sigh -- and then peacefully succumb to sleep. It was wonderful.

I believe, that as we get older, we train ourselves out of this method of relaxation. Sure, we cry sometimes. Sometimes we cry a lot. But we don't really allow ourselves to get to that point of letting go because in our mature minds, those troubles which brought about the tears haven't really gone away. When we're little, mama's always going to be there in the morning. Now that we're older, the troubles are deeper, darker, and more everlasting.

But then, not really. As you said yourself, there's always more in this world to find happiness with than there is to find sadness with. It takes a lot to realize that, and even more to admit it sometimes. But it's generally an excellent -- and healthy -- way to look at life. I've found a lot to be happy about in the last year, much to my surprise, as I've mentioned before.

I'll be the first to admit that I am a hot mess of constantly bubbling emotions. When I'm not, I get hives! It's no joke. For all the times I'm a crying sap, though -- I fought back tears throughout the entirety of The Blind Side -- I'm also a beaming ray of sunshine. Ha! Yes, I just wrote that. A close friend of mine, Dana, tells me my face is an open book. Some days, though I may not be crying, may not even be frowning, she can tell instantly that something is bothering me. I'm lucky. It's almost as if the simple fact of a dear friend noticing is enough to get rid of those ugly feelings brewing beneath the surface.

Other days, of course, when I'm happy for no apparent reason, when I'm smiling simply because someone's smiling at me or it's sunny outside, I can feel the entire room light up. It's those days that people seem to take the most notice of me. Someone told me one day that they loved my smile, and it caught me so off-guard because I hadn't even realized I had been smiling. It was charming. That's the word. And it made me feel charming. Ha!

My point is, sure, crying can be messy and ugly and annoying and so completely not fun, but it can also be just as good for you as smiling is. In the right company. I completely understand the fear of your emotions being used against you -- this has certainly happened to me in the past, most often (and perhaps singularly) in the case of a wolf dressed in sheep's clothing.

But how do you know, when sometimes their disguise is so great?

In this case, get a border collie. Figuratively, at any rate. Border collies are those people you can trust, those people who have proven their unfailing loyalty, love, and care for you. Surround yourself with them. Or just stick with one of them, and chances are, they'll lead you to more like them. Birds of a feather flock together, after all. In the last year, I have become quite successful in herding out the wolves. Or, I have some good border collies (see: Dana, above, or Quality People here).

So. This sounds an awful lot like I'm giving you advice, but I'm really not. I'm mostly just passing on what I've come to learn about emotions -- and dealing with them. As the song goes, let it out and let it in. It's the only way to do it. Emotions are messy, and life is a heck of a lot easier without them. But then life just wouldn't be all that fun, would it? The smiling days would seem banal -- the utter opposite of lively. And that, my dear, would be just unacceptable, don't you agree?

Bisous,

Kate