shaking it off.

{me today, no make-up, looking tiredslashglum, picture compliments of caleb.}

Regrets collect like old friends
Here to relive your darkest moments
I can see no way, I can see no way
And all of the ghouls come out to play
And every demon wants his pound of flesh
But I like to keep some things to myself
I like to keep my issues drawn
It's always darkest before the dawn

Sometimes out of nowhere, sadness appears.  It doesn't happen often, but when it does...

It does.

When it shows up, it twists and turns from deep-down and as hard as I try, I can't shake it.  It usually happens to emerge {as it did this time} on days when Ben isn't home until after 10 p.m., which is pretty unfortunate because when I feel it hit me, the only thing I crave is to be alone.  I know others who work through it differently, wanting to reach out and have a good cry while someone listens and holds them, but I have never been this way.  I just want space from every living thing so I can move through the waves as easily as possible on my own, feeling it all the way through my fingertips and toes, and then have it be done.

But alone-ness isn't often found among 3 very chit-chattery children.  {oh yes, Miss June is speaking now, picking up words and inflections and tones that crack us all up. And also add to the noise level of our home.}  And that's okay, that's my normal and the space I love most to be in...  except when I'm sad. Because when I'm sad, I don't even want to be in my own presence, and I'm guessing my kids probably feel the exact same way.

I'm someone who lives in the present, most of the time.  Well, I vacillate between the present and the past. I'm not much of a future thinker, which means I stink at setting and achieving goals {something I'm working on}.  But the good news is that I feel very present most of the time in my life, and I live in the moment.  I have a constant feeling {not a fearful one, more of an aware one}  that it could all be swept away at the blink of an eye, so I do my best to make sure that when I leave a person or situation, I'm at peace with the way things are left. I spend most minutes of my day feeling grateful for what I am surrounded by.  And most importantly for me, I'm at peace with who I am when I lay my head down each night.

But when the sadness comes, I live very much in my past. Suddenly I'm haunted by ghosts full of regret or disappointment, old fear and insecurities, mistakes and missteps.  I find it so strange that it randomly hits me at once, on all sides, when the majority of my life is lived giving these memories very little, if any, thought at all.

"Try to bury my troubles away

I drown my sorrows the same way

it seems that no matter how hard I try

It feels like something's just missing inside"

Back before therapy, these days used to feel unendingly frustrating.  I wanted to know why I was sad, so I could just get over it.  I told myself there just wasn't a good enough reason for it. There were people who were really suffering all over the place!  Right now!  What was going so wrong in my life that I deserved to be sad for?!

Well, I know better now.  Instead of trying to figure out why the rope is fraying, or beating myself up for even having frayed emotions at all, now I just do my best to own it.  I take care of myself through it, cancel plans if I need to, stay in my PJ's for as long as I can manage, and just lay low...while playing my favorite deep-down-emotions-type of music of course.  I'm a more mellowed-down version of a mom to my kids and wife to my husband. I don't take a lot of calls and kind of stay off the grid.  And it's enough, I'm enough.

It doesn't make the sadness more bearable, but it does make me more pleasant to be around....at least I think it does.  Facing my ghosts and demons head-on helps me to shake them off without pretending they aren't there, because they are.  We all have them.  They are a part of me just as much as my present-day diapers and mini-van trips are.  I've had sadness where I've tried to plan my way through it, busy myself during it, avoid it, and it seems to stay longer and only causes me to get irritated on top of getting sad because I'm trying to force it away.  And who wants to be irritated on top of sad?

Then, once I've felt it and faced it, as quickly as it arrived,

the sadness is gone.  

I'm fun mom and content wife, who lives in today, and life returns to normal.  The air around me lightens and the ghosts return to their tucked-in corners while I play my happy music, laughing with my chit-chattery kids, soaking in their noise and chaos as we dance around the kitchen.

And I'm relieved the sadness has been shaken once again, 
because it's hard to dance with the devil on your back.