How did I get to this place? My face is that of the dead laying in a coffin: frozen, emotionless, lifeless. Can you see the fear, the anger, the sadness in my eyes? It's gotten worse lately, although Rob says I've always been a difficult person to read. That surprises me because I feel like everyone can see right through me, or at least that's what I'm afraid of. Is it true? Do you find me hard to read?
I wasn't always like this. Throughout middle school and high school, I was emotionally all over the place. I felt so out of control of my emotions and I hated that. When I laughed, when I cried, I was so embarrassed because I was so loud about it. With my Cross-Country friends I was known as “Little Miss Giggles” because I was always laughing, even on the starting line. I cried all the time too throughout middle and high school but usually alone at night in bed, listening to sad songs. But then, somewhere along the way, I went from crying alone to not crying at all. I went to feeling out of control of my emotions to completely controlling my emotions. It's like with an addiction where at some point, the addiction starts to control you. My control is now controlling me. That's why, last year when I got my wisdom teeth out, I wept when I was coming out of the anesthesia and it felt so good. I unabashedly wept... tears just rolling down my face and I didn't even try to wipe them away. I was completely free and out of control and I didn't care. It feels so good to be out of control like that. I wish I let myself be there more often.
So I've become an unreadable person. Laughter, I have no problem with. I laugh loud and hearty and that lights up my whole face. But anger and sadness, those emotions I don't know how to show on my face. I don't know how to let go and allow myself to feel those and express those and let others see that and be in that with me. I've been so afraid of letting others know how they affect me that now, no one can read me, including myself. I've lost connection to how I'm feeling when it comes to my anger and sadness. Why am I so afraid? I shock myself with how controlled I've become. And now, well, it's no wonder how shut down I am. This is what comes from controlling myself for all these years. Yet there has to be some outlet... when I'm so controlled with my emotions, there has to be another part of my self and my life that is out of control. It has to eek out somewhere. I'm out of control with my messiness and lack of organization – with the house and with my car. I'm out of control with my chronic lateness. I'm out of control with my procrastination and feeling stuck and not getting anything done like I want to.
When someone, like myself, is so controlled, there are issues of trust, powerlessness, anxiety, and unexpressed emotions of anger and grief. At the dinner table when I was a baby, and the youngest of four siblings, I had no trouble yelling out to make myself heard. I was rewarded for that – it was cute and I was enjoyed and given attention. Growing up, my mom was all about wanting me to be free to express my emotions and talk about my feelings but I guess I learned more from her actions and how she dealt with her own feelings than by what she told me to do. People who know my mom describe her as a stoic woman. I had no idea that one day people would describe me that way too.
So here I am. Buried alive next to my father, trying to find my way back to life. I lace up my running shoes and take it one mile at a time.
