Walking in the Rain, but not singing

(warning: long post, not much fun)

Wow, a lot of pain today. I woke up sad and with a lump in my throat. I can’t remember my dreams, but know that the last one was fairly intense (but not necessarily in a bad or scary way, just strong, if that makes sense). I had to wake up early to meet my women’s group for breakfast, and it was dark and rainy. I love rainy days, but I really just wanted to crawl back under the covers, pull them up over my head and go back to sleep.

On the way to breakfast, I was listening to Don’t Drink The Water. It has always been a song that resonated with me, and I found the CD at the library so checked it out. It stirs me up. So gritty and painful. I guess I’ve always associated it with a romantic relationship that has broken up or he’s trying to break it up or whatever. It may have nothing to do with that, but that’s my interpretation. So I was crying a bit on the way.

During breakfast I was fine. I don’t think/feel like I was hiding anything from my girlfriends, but the casa internationale de pan-cakeys isn’t exactly conducive to intimate, tearful conversation.

Then I got back in my car to do a few errands, and was obsessively playing it over and over again, determined to dig into my sadness and hope for some explanation. I find that music really does the trick for me. It opens up sadness, despair, rage, unbelievable happiness and ecstasy. I love love love to dance, and always feel so un-effing-believably free. It is cathartic, gets the blood and juices flowing, and makes me feel very feminine and powerful. But sad or strong songs can get emotions going too, and I’ve spent many an hour weeping to moving music. Maybe the added benefit is the noise often masks my sobbing, so I don’t feel so self-conscious about it. In connection to this, I’ve been reading Gabrielle Roth’s Sweat Your Prayers, and really making some personal connections and revelations. Thank you, Gabrielle.

So I run my errands, listening to it in-between, and finally get on the road to go home. One last stop for gas, and as I’m on the exit ramp, with the music blasting and churning, it occurs to me that this song reminds me of the person that I’ve been struggling with in relationship, and as soon as I make that connection – SNAP – the floodgates burst open and the waterworks pour out. I am sobbing and heaving and feel like I’m going to yak again (like the other night, which again is very unusual for me when I have a crying jag). I can’t stop – thankfully the light was red and I could just let it all out. I can’t believe the meaning of the song in connection with this family relationship, and how much it represents what I’m feeling towards this person. I want to scream, pound things. Then I have to get out of my car and pump the gas. Thankfully it’s raining, so if anyone sees my tears, hopefully they’ll think it’s rain. Mostly, though, I don’t give a rat’s ass. Most people are too involved with themselves to notice what the hell is going on around them anyway.

Back in the car, more sobbing and heaving and feeling like I’m gonna Ralph. I can’t believe the pain, the anger. Goddess, it feels so GOOD to get it the hell out of me!!!!

So I get home, hoping for a few minutes more of emptying myself in the car before going in to face the fam, and the neighbors are home and they are at their kitchen table, which has a window that directly faces my car. Oh well, I don’t want to make a display in front of them.

So I go inside, and I’m crying, and the family is worried, etc. I tell my bf what’s going on with me, and he holds me, and I cry some more. It feels so good to get comfort – this was not something I got growing up. I had to comfort myself. I read a lot. Probably too much. Mostly old har-le-quins that my grandmother had given me, laughably outdated and prim compared to what was available at that time. I ate sweets more than I should have, and it has blown into a full-fledged binging problem at times now that I have the “freedom” to buy my own junk food (or not). I didn’t talk about it, I didn’t write about it (except once in a great while), I didn’t get it out. I just stuffed and stuffed it until I would have a 1-2 hour crying jag once every couple of months. Awful.

Since it’s my kinda day (rainy, somewhat cool, given it’s January in the northeast) and I have all this STUFF inside me, whirling and churning and begging for release, I go for a walk around the track across from my house. Walking and crying and crying and walking and choking, wondering if I am actually going to vomit from it all. It’s not like the feeling you get if you cry hard for too long, which I have felt before. It really was more like “I have this blackness, this swill inside me and it wants out now now NOW” – not nausea, but full-on expelling the poison. I don’t end up barfing, thankfully, because I hate hate hate barfing. I can’t every do it gently or quietly, and all these little blood vessels in my face break and I look like I have purplish dots all over my face and neck, and my throat feels like someone took sandpaper to it.

As I’m walking, the rain is coming down harder. I have no umbrella, no raincoat. I raise my face to it, cleansing, washing the tears and pain away. The rain soaks my hair, my clothes. Wash me clean – I think that’s from a k.d. lang song. I calm down, then more of the pain and sadness well up, up and out. I pull my shoulders back, opening up my chest (like in yoga), and the hurt pops out of it, spilling out of my eyes, sobs pouring out of my throat. UP and OUT. I do a body scan, trying to connect where the pain is, where I’m holding it in my muscles (thanks again Gabrielle Roth). The right side of my face feels heat, despite the chilly rain. My throat – my god, my throat. Constricted, tight, filled with a fist of emotion. My throat is my emotional regulator – it lets stuff out, if I allow it. It allows bad food in, if I stuff it along with the emotions. It also lets the good stuff in, and sings for me, and speaks my truth. I think I need to work on that chakra.

The grief seems to be residing below my sternum, right around my upper belly. Cloudy, a big bowl of blech sloshing around – it feels so endless, so deep, so infinite. A universe of pain, bubbling and blobbing. Sometimes it feels like it will never end, like I’ll start crying or screaming or whatever and never be able to stop. Similar to the emotional hunger that I try to diminish with comfort food, filling and filling and filling but never feeling full, just bloated and gross. Ugh.

There is a spot in my lower left hand back that often will be very twingey and tight when I am feeling emotional pain. I’m not sure if there was trauma to it at some point in my life, but I don’t remember anything specific. It may just be where I hold pain. I don’t feel it when I am getting massages or any time when I’m feeling ok, only when I’m hurting inside. I feel tightness in my hamstrings (always a tight area for me anyway) and stretch down to let it out. My hands feel fine, my feet feel fine.

I feel like running, so I do so for a little bit. The rain comes down harder, in sympathy or empathy, maybe? I’m pretty soaked by now, and starting to feel a little cold. I walk over to look at the stream next to the track. I love watching water. Oceans, lakes, streams, rivers. Even the water in my new washer, which is a front-loader and has a glass window through which I can watch my clothes getting washed. It calms me, centers me, comforts me. Stillness in the midst of the swirling eddies. Hmm. The trees and dead leaves smell so familiar, and it comforts me. Now I have to pee, and I’m thoroughly wet, but I do feel better. Not that ecstatic “ahhh” of release that I get from exercise, but more like the calm after the storm. Coincidentally (or not), the rain has subsided to an occasional drizzle, and I head home to get it out on virtual paper.

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So, in looking up the Don't Drink The Water song, I discovered it's about the displacement/slaughter of Native Americans. Ah well. I think music is out there for anyone's interpretation, and if I find meaning in it different than the artist intended, so be it.

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While I was getting ready to post this from word (so I wouldn't lose it halfway through purging), my sweet daughter brought in tea for me. Without me even mentioning it. She had tea for the first time the other day when she was sick. *sigh* I'm a lucky mom. The poor kids were probably confused and upset by my crying when I came home, but I explained that I didn't have a good relationship with this family member, and I was feeling sad. That's all I can do, and certainly a better role model for being present with your feelings, then dealing with them in a healthy manner. My son seemed to understand that I needed to get rid of some energy when I told them I was going for a walk. I am blessed.

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Swam last night, and did chest/arms. I didn't have good fuel in me (never did have my lunch, just cookies, bad xena), so I was quite shaky during the weights. Today's plan is to jump on the elliptical and purge some more yucky energy, and then hit my shoulders/back. Not literally, of course. Then tomorrow I want to try out the cardio kickboxing class in the morning. I'm not much of a "gym class" person, although I do admit I work harder when someone else is pushing me, and I've really been missing my karate.

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh