Purging

 

Anger.  Sadness.  Depression.  Manic.  Anxiety.  Despair.  Overwhelm.  I don't want any of them, but they keep showing up.  I keep thinking, hoping, this party will someday end, but it keeps going.  None of the guests want to leave.  Grief is ugly.  Grief is illogical.  One of my friends compared it to a sneaker wave.  Out of nowhere, it crashes down on me with tidal wave force, bringing any number of its friends along for the fun.  I get tossed and tumbled in the chaos, waiting to surface before I run out of air.

Purging helps.  Getting the words out, getting the emotions down on paper, putting names to the things I am feeling, even if I don't know why I'm feeling them, all helps.  Anger was in firm control at the beginning of this week.  Writing about it and talking about it and yelling into the ether all helped.  I purged as much of it as I could.  Why Anger showed up now, in such force, makes no sense to me, but none of this makes sense to me.  Every day, the alarm goes off and I wonder what fresh emotions will arise on this given day.  I always hope for Peace, Love, Compassion, and Joy.  They show up often.  But on days like these past few days, Anger was in firm control.  There is no logic to any of it.  I feel like I'm on a never-ending rollercoaster sometimes.  I go through all the loops and twists and turns and stomach-clenching drops and get herky-jerked around in my seat.  The car slows as it enters the loading zone and I hope I can get off this horrible ride.  Just when I think the restraining bar will lift and I can unload, the car accelerates again, onto a completely new and different track with all new drops and loops and twists and turns.  

I was in a remarkably good headspace when we returned from the river trip.  Being in nature with three of my closest friends was exactly what I needed.  It was the perfect reset for me.  On the last day of the trip, we talked about staying on "River Time," and whatever that meant for each of us.  To me, River Time means time to slow down, to not be crushed by responsibilities and chores and to-do lists.  It means living and breathing Peace and Joy through every fiber of my being, and allowing Nature to refill my soul.  The simplicity of River Time gives space for clarity.  I held onto River Time for quite a few weeks.  In those weeks after the trip, I was filled with Peace and Joy.  I thought maybe I had figured out this grieving thing, that maybe the big emotions had softened a little.  As the weeks passed, I felt River Time slipping away, and the big emotions wrangle their way back in.

"Just let it go."  My friend's words echo in my ears often.  Yes, I know.  But I don't know how.  I don't know how because I never know what will arise.  I just keep purging, writing and speaking my thoughts and emotions.  I HAVE to get this stuff out of me.  

I WANT to get this stuff out of me.  I don't want unresolved issues or emotions coming back to bite me years down the road.  I realize this will be a lifelong journey.  I am so tired of processing.  I don't want anymore big feelings catching me unaware and punching me square in the nose.  I don't want anymore epiphanies about mistakes or realizations that take my breath away and keep me up at night.  Yet, they keep coming.  I know I have to deal with them as they arise, so I just keep purging.  I think purging might be the way to "just let it go."