Being ok: The story of me today
It was a pretty cold and rainy day in April when we came out of the therapist’s office, I was on the verge of tears (and a complete meltdown, although I had no idea that was in store for me), and the first thing he said to me as we headed to the car was “wow, you have issues!” I felt too much like I was in some sort of weird alternate reality to react to that comment.
Our marriage therapist, a West Indian woman herself, at first thought I was pretty funny and well adjusted. After a couple visits though, she sort of stood back, looked at me concerned and said “I don’t think you actually feel emotions”. I sort of wanted to laugh, because it sounded so ridiculous, but I also sort of wanted to sob, because it sounded so real.
After months and months of complete confusion, I slowly realized that I was one of those people whose hurt and sadness was buried so deep down inside that it was hidden from everyone, including myself apparently. It was the hardest time in my life. I wanted desperately to be back to “normal”. I wanted everything to just be “ok” again. To be honest, I wasn’t sure what I wanted. What I learnt though was that for most of my life I tried to be what I was expected to be, and I forgot what it was like to actually be me.
The separation was the result of a lot of discussions and consultations – I believe it was something that we really needed to do and I believe that neither of us has regretted the decision. I will not say that there is no way things can be resolved, I mean although we do have divorce papers about to be filed, life has shown me that nothing is impossible, nothing is black and white, and never say “never” (actually that last one, Sid taught me, but you know…). I have no idea how my life will end up, but I do know that at this point in my life, this is what I needed.
Sometimes people listen to me and wonder how I didn’t know I wasn’t actually feeling emotions and I really don’t know the answer. What I do know is that I worked a lot, I had a lot of “projects”, I always had to be doing something, I gained an excessive amount of weight, I overreacted for the littlest things, but didn’t react at all for other things, laughed a lot, made inappropriate-funny-mostly-to-me comments a lot and now I understand that I had to distract myself to unnatural levels just to survive, I had to make things funny so I didn’t feel the sadness, and repression/suppression of things usually causes very obvious weight gain and very bipolar-like behavior.
My friend said to me that she believes that we have to reach rock bottom before we’re brave enough to make the changes we need to for our lives to be better. Maybe that’s what happened, I don’t know. But the closeness and intimacy that I share today with my kids was not something that I’ve ever been able to experience before and no matter what I had to go through to get here, I’ll be eternally grateful. I now live my life with integrity, I know that I am being honest to the people in my life, to myself, and especially to my kids, who are so perceptive that they’ve noticed, and very much appreciate, the cosmic shift in my state of being.
During those really confusing days when I wasn’t sure what emotions really felt like, someone very important to me told me that “the situation we’re in should dictate how we feel”, and I think back now to that and it’s probably the worse bit of advice I’ve ever gotten. I think I do need to feel what I feel – I cannot be scared of my emotions, I cannot be ashamed of them – they are mine, part of who I am, and if I ignore them then I am losing myself. However, I don’t think we need to act on them. Our actions should be driven by faith, compassion, morality, humanity, our life experiences and lessons; but to say that our true feelings are not valid is like saying that we are not worthy of being a person.
It took me a long time to understand that I push people away because I didn’t want to have an emotional connection with anyone. It took some pretty amazing friendships to get me through some of the most difficult days of my life. It took an immense amount of soul searching to come to a place where I am comfortable with who I am. You know, happiness is elusive and transient, I am not sure any of us know what that feels like for more than just brief moments in our lives, but this feeling that I am living the life that I want to live, that I am living with integrity, that I am not pretending to be anything I am not, or feeling anything that I am not, this is better. I think this is what “being ok” feels like. And this, I like.
