Feel

I'm not a very openly emotional person.  I don't burst into tears when I fight with my husband.  I don't cry at movies and most of the time I don't even cry at funerals. Despite my tendency towards nostalgia, which many people would say indicates that  I am an emotional person, I tend to disagree.  When an intense emotional situation presents itself, I tend to think more along the lines of "What can I do here?" Most times, the answer is nothing.  And if there is nothing I can do, I move on.

That's not to say that I don't feel or get upset.  What I have always done in most emotionally intense circumstances is tell myself "Kate, you can be upset.  For one day." (Or hour or week, depending on the situation.)  A good example of this is a work conflict I had with someone a couple years back.  It escalated to the point that no matter what, there was nothing I could do to change the situation.  I could only change how I reacted to that situation. Basically what I did was I allowed myself that weekend to be angry, to hurt, to sort of let it all fester.  Monday morning I shut it off, blocked it out, and went out into the world like nothing happened.  I've done this kind of thing a lot throughout my life. But something happened yesterday that made me think that maybe this isn't the best way to handle the situation.

Another "emotional flaw" of mine (along with getting the giggles in serious situations and crying hysterically when I am angry at someone) is that on the rare occasion that the emotional floodgates open, it all comes out.  Kind of like on The Walking Dead, when the fence got weak at the prison and the zombies all pushed and pushed and knocked it over, flooding the yard.  On the rare day that it rains, it pours.

That happened yesterday.

I had a fantastic weekend in Orlando, which most of you know is my most favorite city in the world.  Through some bad planning, I was the last of our group to leave.  As the day wore on, I started to feel the letdown that happens whenever I leave Orlando.  I was on my way to Target with Tera (who lives there) and Dianna (who was staying the week, and had her family flying in just before I flew out.) Dianna glanced at me from the driver's seat and commented that I hadn't been this quiet in my whole life.  She asked if I was okay.  To which I replied, "Always am."  I started remembering all the times I had flown back to Ohio, leaving my sister behind.  As we unpacked groceries in her rented condo I was thinking how sad it was that we were all kind of trickling out of Orlando.  A bummer, but okay.

Then we drove to the airport, where I maintained my silence thinking about other things.  Before you all get appalled that I wasn't excited to get home to my kids, let me share that they weren't even going to be there.  They were snowed in at my sister in law's in Columbus.  So not only am I being separated from my favorite city, and leaving behind some of my favorite people, my own family isn't even going to be there when I get home.  Cue the tears, but I held them back.

When we got to the airport, I checked my bag and went with Tera and Dianna to meet her family.  Now, with the exception of my own family and a small handful of you Columbkille kids, no one has known me longer than Dianna and her family.  It was a happy reunion of hugs.  I was sad, but I was good. After they got their bags the goodbyes started, and I was okay until my 9 year old godson hugged me and asked, confused, "Where are you going?"Dianna jumped in and explained, freeing me to rush off to my gate in tears.

Thankfully Maureen was delayed getting out to Dulles, so she was able to more or less sort me out before she left. By this point all I want to do is get to my gate, get on the plane, and get home.  But that would have been too easy.  I had to fight my way through a pack of soccer hooligans and go through security a second time.  I forced myself to eat something so I wouldn't be starving when I got home and sat at my gate.  Remember what I said about my emotional floodgates? Here is where is really all went crazy.  I'm alone in the Orlando airport, appropriately upset, but then things that have absolutely nothing to do with the current situation start popping into my head and making things worse.

It's Lent.  During Lent in 1996, my grandmother died. A few days before I was going to show her my prom dress.  During Lent in 2005, my grandfather died, a few days before I was going to bring him pictures of my dog.  During Lent of 2007 my uncle died, before reading a very important letter from his daughter.  There were a few other things that popped into my head that are a little too personal to even write here, but they were losses and situations that tore me up inside. Think back to the beginning of this painfully long blog.  Are these things that still upset me because I only allowed myself to hurt from them for a few days? Is it impossible for the heart to heal from things like this if you put a time constraint on it?

Thankfully I got on the plane, and between my peanut M&Ms and my perky, Bible reading seatmate, I was able to pull it together.  I dug out my car, got myself home and swam through the snow into the house.  I fell into an exhausted sleep.

I'm not a mess right now, even after flooding my bathroom this morning. I feel pretty stable, compared to the hot mess I was yesterday, but as I was sitting in traffic this morning I decided that maybe the next time something happens that really hurts, breaks my heart or makes me really sad, I'm going to try feeling it all the way through.  Because if I don't lock it in a box after a weekend, maybe I don't ever have to worry about it breaking out and  ambushing me at Gate 110 of the Orlando airport.