Archive for cathartic
Who am I?
The braces are off. There’s nothing left for me to hide behind. I have to be the real me, naked on the streets. Reminds me of a piece I wrote in WARP my freshman year in college: Faces in the Crowd. Sometimes it feels like I don’t really know who I am waiting for. Am I waiting for someone else or am I waiting for the real me? I’ve always had something to hide behind. Hide is the wrong word; more like protect the real me from the rest of the world.
The steps involved in processing and accepting the new me are scary. I thought I was going to lose my mind the other day when I was on the elliptical trainer at the gym. I have never been one to have ‘breakthrough moments’ when running; I’m not Forrest Gump. I came pretty close though. I have always enjoyed making different music mixes for myself and my friends for different reasons. I built one a few weeks ago for a close friend of mine that I liked so much; I moved the mix to my own iPod. It wasn’t made as a running mix, but it works as one.
Song lyrics always strike a chord with me; even if they mean something different than what the song is actually trying to say. Breast cancer and Cruzon’s syndrome are in no way related that I know of. However, I would have sworn Melissa Etheridge was talking to me the other day. All my life I have been in and out of hospitals, doctor’s offices, braces, orthodontist’s offices. I never had to deal with ‘me’; someone else was always doing that for me. However, they only dealt with the physical.
I avoided the emotional; for 19+ years. I felt trapped. After 28 years I have nothing left to hide behind. I can shut down and not let anybody in, but I don’t want to do that. I’m scared to death of who I am though. I’ve slowly let people in; but even some of them who think they know me, really don’t. I never present a false me, but I do only allow people to see the tip of the iceberg. There is so much more below the surface that it would sink your ship if you hit it.
When I found Faces, I found some other pieces I had written. One which I find oddly appropriate: Lost. And I always liked this one: Contact. Something written ten years ago is still applicable today; scary thought.
feed. seek. cherish.
Eat. Pray. Love.
It’s a book everyone should read: men, women, college co-eds, retirees. It’s the story of a woman looking for herself. Finding herself in a cafe in Naples. Letting go of her beliefs in a cave in India. Stumbling across her partner in Bali.
Losing yourself in a book is a wonderful adventure. Looking up from the page and realizing you’ve had your nose stuck in a book for two hours doesn’t happen too often today; at least not for me. Abandoning everything you know and taking yourself halfway across the world to try to find it is a crazy notion. Something inside of me is whispering, if given the opportunity, I would do it.
Maybe it’s my sense of adventure. Maybe it’s my love of a world unexplored. Maybe I still feel ‘lost’. I’ve been exploring my own path, writing my own story. It has been an adventure: uncovering rocks, clearing fields. Sometimes I feel like I’m standing under an avalanche, unable to stop the snow piling up around me. That’s the thing about snow, it melts away.
When we start to chip away at the emotions that have been frozen, it can be scary. We cover things up constantly; with food, with distraction, with avoidance. When we meet someone that keeps turning our head back to the mirror, we don’t like it; our instinct is to fight. It’s only when we finally process what’s underneath our skin – in our hearts – that we can grow.
Writing has proven to be quite cathartic. However, a couple of topics are still off limits. I’ve tiptoed around one of them. Maybe one day soon I’ll wake them up and really work on what’s on the inside.
Metro Margarita 