Unloading

Okay - here it is. I don't have the mental capacity to try and come up with a 'plot' for this. I'm just letting it all out - right here.

I am in so much pain.
I hurt all the time.
I have hurt many times over the years and this pain is not new. It is old, and I know it well. I know it is going to last a long time.
It has changed who I am and I resent it for that.
I can not be who I want to be, who I should be because it is ever-present.
When it gets really bad, I get a little frantic inside and wonder what I can find to try and numb it - take the edge off.
Booze? Drugs? God? A fling?
In the end I do nothing because maybe this is just the way it is supposed to be.
I know that I am exhausting my friends.
But if I don't get this out it will eat me up and I will implode.

I'm also really, really pissed off.
He's out living the life he has always wanted and I am here trying to figure out what the heck to do next and how to pull whatever 'it' is off.
I feel cornered with limited options.
I just can not go to school full time for four years and still be a good mom.
I probably can't choose anything with shift work because he does shift work, and of course, that is what I want to do - work at the hospital.
I need to make good money because I have NO desire to be dependant on him for anything ever again.
There are times when I hate him. I usually try to nip those feelings off in the bud because hate is like a cancer and it does nothing to hurt him. Just me. But I still do sometimes.

I feel worthless.
Rejected.
Invisible.
Weak.
Dumb.
Pathetic.
And afraid that I not only feel these things, but that I am these things.

(I need a good title - any suggestions?)

As she is driving home to see her most favorite little people in the whole world, a realization pushes in past the emotions steadily churning inside. It is a beautiful day. The sun is shining for the first time in about a week, shining on the mountains and the snow in the fields. Days like this usually lift her spirits and hope pours in.

Not now.

Always a feeling before thinking. Her mind questions her heart. Realization begins to dawn.

Anger.

She is angry.

As recognition comes, the feeling immediately grows almost as if it had been lurking in the corner for a while and once spotted comes to make a formal greeting.

She knew angers companions well - hurt and frustration - but rarely saw anger in it's pure form. But here it was, smirking at her.

Upon the advice of a dear friend, to confront every emotion that comes along, she begins to do something that she has never done before. She starts to yell. Yelling at someone who is not there to hear. On and on she rants, waiting for the anger to melt into tears or hurt, but it does not. So she continues, punctuating her sentences with hand gestures and banging the steering wheel, not caring if the other drivers sharing the road notice. She is a little surprised at her desire to have her fist connect hard with someones face.

The miles roll by. She is close to home. Not wanting this battle to continue when she gets there, she wraps the tirade up, takes a couple of deep breaths and ponders on all of the things that had spewed forward. Nothing revolutionary had been revealed. There was nothing she hadn't said before. She was aware that the anger had not left her completely, it was back in its corner, waiting to come out again sometime. And that would be fine. She'd be ready then too. She has become a woman who is finally unafraid of emotion and all that comes with the different forms. The displays, the confronting, the accepting, the sharing, all of it. And she marvels again at how free she feels, comparing it to how stifled she used to be without being aware of it.

Free.

Free.

Pulling into her drive, a smile spreads across her face. It is a beautiful day.