grief.

At a little salon in Olean the hairdresser asked me, hours before my wedding, if I thought I would cry when I read my vows. All my bridesmaids burst out in simultaneous laughter. Me? Cry? That was not something that I did. There are people out there who love their Excel Spreadsheets. The data all stored neatly in the correct column. Each piece of data contained within one small cell. I suppose that I am a lover of putting my emotions in whatever the heart and soul equivalent of an Excel Spreadsheet is. 

As a child I was more than emotional. Some would say a brat, others would probably say clinically insane. There was no controlling the outbursts, the crying fits, or my specialty, kicking the wall in my bedroom until my mother caved. Everyone thought it was a phase, until I was 15 and still through similar sized tantrums. As I grew into my High School years and acted the same not just with family but friends as well, I started noticing the visceral reactions to my entitlement, including the absolute distraction of my friendship with my (almost) lifelong best friend. I learned that emotions were best left inside, choking the life out of me rather than scaring others away from me. So my emotions went into their tidy little columns only for me to see and feel. 

The unraveling of this all began privately, behind closed doors for the most part. I had gotten so used to storing all these emotions away that I forgot how to express emotions in a healthy way. And so at home, shortly after the birth of my son, my emotions took hold of me as a deep depression, and towards my husband as rage-filled rants, nastier but not dissimilar to those of my childhood. The depression tore my own heart apart, as the rage tore my marriage apart. The unraveling became public and in it the admission of all I could no longer control, hide or handle myself. 

I think back to my wedding and that laughter at the idea of me crying, and then I think back to eight hours ago when the idea of not crying was just as laughable. I continue to try to repair the beautiful, awful, broken relationship that is my marriage and with every misstep and rejection I have no other choose but to let the grief and pain overtake me. Sometimes it hits in the middle of meetings, or coffee dates, or the middle of a run. It happens in front of people who have not asked to be in this awkward position but who do not look away until I have said as much or as little as I need. It happens in front of friends who never have the right words because there are no right words, but they sit with me, taking on my heartbreak and loss. It happens in front of my son who always says "Mommy crying. It's okay." and then pulls he a little tighter. 

What I've learned in this season is that my grief, my emotions, my honesty are building community that I never have built and love I never felt in all the hiding. My heart was never meant to read like a spreadsheet--tidy and bland. My heart was meant to offer all of me; the story of a woman scarred, bruised, and sinful but redeemed into a better story. My lips were meant to speak truths so my truth and my story might allow you to tell the story that's choking your heart. My soul was meant to mourn, to grieve, to rejoice, to be joyful, because without the admission of the lowest of lows, my life can also not give gratitude for the highest of highs. 

(This is more of a fresh and personal blog than I typically write. I usually try to allow the emotion to wear off a bit but today I needed to let it out knowing that in the moment, my pain is so personal, but at the end of the long journey of grief, we all have a story, a circumstance, a relationship, that have impacted us in these certain ways. You are not alone, friend. You are seen and known by someone greater.)