At a crossroads.

Some of my friends say I'm brave, that they can't believe how "real" I am on my blog -- that I would post the actual number on my bathroom scale, for example.

Well, to be honest, that little piece of data doesn't bother me.  It's a completely objective thing, how much force the planet needs to exert in order to keep me from floating away into outer space.  I'm not fond of clothes shopping, or how I look, but those are subjective things, and I don't tend to write a lot about those, because I try not to think about them too much.

For forty years, there have been many things I've tried not to think about too much -- to the point that I thought I had dealt with them.  Instead, I'd just covered up the cracks with masking tape and kept going, trying to stay one step ahead of my feelings of pain, guilt, and paralyzing fear.  I just came across a quotation that I'm going to share with you, Gentle Reader: "Deal with your feelings before your feelings deal with you."

I got sucker-punched by my feelings last Wednesday.

If I'd been paying attention, I would have seen it coming.  Looking back on the last five months, I can make a list of moments when I could hear them sneaking up on me, if I'd only been paying attention enough to listen.  Looking back, of course, it's crystal clear.

On Wednesday, after I'd stepped away for more than twenty minutes, a coworker found me holed up in the staff bathroom, sobbing uncontrollably and having no clue how on Earth to get out of there.  I came home, and have been not been back since.  And I'm a mess.  I feel like every experience, memory, emotion I'd ever had had been filed away where I wouldn't have to look at it, and someone has come along, dumped the filing cabinet all over the floor, and turned on a very large fan.  I am not a happy camper.

But since Wednesday, I've slowly come around to realizing that this is an opportunity -- to finally deal with all of this crap and get rid of it, not stuff it away.  Stuffing it away means holding onto it, like hoarding pain.  And why would anyone want to do that?

So as unhappy as I am with feeling this way, not working, worrying about paying my bills, and having no end date in sight, I'm going to actually go through this process this time, rather than trying to "get better" the quickest way possible.  (I've done that before, and it wasn't really "better."  Not even close.)  I'm going to take the time to deal with it, however much time that might be.  I'm not going to put on the fake happy face, and I'm going to refrain from hiding from myself -- as much as that might suck.

Because coming out the other side of this is bound to be a richer, fuller life.  And that's what I'm counting on.