Emotions

In the past fifty years I have gotten really good a suppressing my emotions.  Emotions were something that needed to be in check during my childhood, if you were good and quiet everything went well.  There were three temperatures in our household, hot, where tempers were flaring.  Cold, which always preceded hot, it was where everyone, even if you weren’t involved in the ‘hot’ incident went to their neutral corner and stayed there until it was ‘safe’ to come out.  Lastly, warm, it was a neutral feeling, people got along and you tried to stay in this place as long as possible.

Lately my suppressed emotions want to come out and ‘play’, which is causing turmoil in my life.

In May 2011 I was diagnosed with Stage 3 Breast Cancer.  When I was first diagnosed I didn’t cry or get upset, I just wanted to know what the next step was and how soon we could get started.

During my treatment I cried, I felt alone, I felt sick and at time helpless but for the most part I tried to stay upbeat and positive.  I tried not to think too much, I just moved through each day as best as I could.

Now that I am cancer free I am finding it more difficult to move through my days.  There are times that television show theme songs can take me back to those treatment days.  It brings back the loneliness, helplessness & sadness I felt back then.  In writing this right now tears are streaming down my face, it's the emotions off that time washing over me all at once.

I don’t want to think about what I went through, I don’t want to remember, I don’t want to feel what I felt.

I know that I need to work through this but I definitely don’t like it!  I know that emotions are not things that you can jam into a box and tie the lid shut when you don’t want to deal with things.  I know that eventually the tie on the swollen box will break and everything will spill out.  Right now my emotions box has busted open and the contents are strewn everywhere.

As I crawl around on the ground gathering up the contents I hope to go through some of it and manage to toss a few items aside.

In the meantime I will persevere, what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, right?  I am stronger now than I was a year ago and though things are difficult now they will get better and if they don’t I will learn that with prayer, faith & friendship I can get through it.

Keep smiling and know that God loves you and so do I.

L