When I Am Sad

“What do you do when you are sad?” She asks me.

“I write.”

“What do you write?”

“I write.”

“What do you write?” She repeats, kindly and patiently, knowing I am slow to warm up.

Everything. I write books. I write poetry. I write blogs. I write on my stomach. I write on my shoes. I write at work and in the middle of the night and even in my dreams.

“I just journal sometimes” I offer casually, hoping I sound truthful. She jots it down in her notebook, satisfied with my answer. She doesn’t really care, she just needs an answer. She needs an answer that shows I am an adult capable of handling emotionally charged situations. She needs to write something down so she can type it up and prove she did her due diligence to research my ability to handle grief, loss, heartache and the emotional roller coaster that has become my life.

“Anything else?”

“Umm...” my voice trails off. Think. Think! What would a healthy person say?!

“I talk to people.” I offer, ironically refusing to make eye contact.

I cry. I scream. I pull over in the car and scream. I yell at God. I come home from work and lay on my bed without even taking my shoes off and I cry until I fall asleep. Sometimes I cut. Sometimes I run away. Sometimes I break the trash can in my car. Sometimes I take all the sadness and roll it in a big ball and stuff it way down in my big toe so that no one can ever find it, hopefully not even me.

Again, she takes my answer and jots it down in her notebook, seemingly satisfied with my healthy person approach.

“It’s okay to be sad.” She tilts her head and looks at me serious. Now she’s real. She’s not looking at her notebook, she’s looking at me. She cares about me. Stop it. Stop caring. She doesn’t just want an answer, she wants me personally to be okay.

“I have no feelings, like a robot” I tease – the safest way I can connect (or disconnect?).

She smiles, knowing it’s not true of course but believing me slightly. I hope she thinks I’m strong. I hope she thinks I don’t get sad very much. I hope she thinks I handle everything in stride. I hope she thinks I am healthy and strong and capable.

She closes her notebook and I sigh, realizing I was holding my breath. I breathe slowly and begin to write in my head.

What it feels like to Leave (A sequel)

I used to write. I used to think I would someday be a writer or at minimum a stay home mom with a famous blog. But life is funny that way because it turns out nothing like what you expected. Not in a disappointing way, just in a different way. I need to write. I used to write. I used to breathe. I used to have air and space and moments to reflect and consider myself. But being a [single] mother is far different than what anyone can explain to you - it's all consuming and the water that is “you” begins to boil. It feels pressure. Yourself begins to evaporate. There’s so much less of the water that is you. You watch yourself diminish before your eyes. You are a vapor and you reach out for the steam but you can't grasp it. It's gone. The tiniest beads of water spread haphazardly around the kitchen tile are the small pieces of you that you have left.

I need to write again. I need to think again. I got myself into a situation again. A situation that requires some breathing and thinking and writing and definitely a sense of self larger than tiny water beads. I feel lost and alone.

I used to write about what it felt like to be left. I used to think I was left a lot. I used to think of myself as the abandonee. Yet somehow over the course of the past two years my brain has shifted in that I am constantly the abandoner. I leave. I don't get left, I leave. (Neither worldview is a balanced, healthy view and in fact I think both could be labeled the same level of "victim mentality" victim-ingitis or something. But I'll indulge in it for awhile until it stops working for me and then I will pick something new. Right now it's working. I think.)

I pride myself on being a flight risk. It seems stronger. I don't get left, I leave! I am the rebellious teenager with arms folded standing by the door, one foot turned outward. I am rolling my eyes at everything you say and in a flash I can grab the door handle and run out. And I can run FAST. I'm ready. I have my running shoes on and I am not afraid.

I used to be a small child, standing at the door that had been slammed in my face and running to the window to try to catch a glimpse of the person who left. Sobbing hysterically and screaming I would pound on the glass of the windows, begging the car driving away to notice me, to give me once last glance. Then I would fall to the floor in the fetal position and scream and cry for a year or two and then I would move on and it would happen again. I decided no more of that. No longer will I let someone slam the door and walk away. Instead, everyone on my life is on the inside and I am by the exit.

Being able to leave feels safe. It feels protected. It feels freeing to know I can walk away any second I chose. It feels like I'm in control. It feels like I am strong. I don't make any sort of decision that would move me away from the door. I am hesitant to make any decision that even makes me move my hand away from the knob but with the right person and circumstance, I can do it for a quick moment.

I am not afraid to be alone, to start over, to close the door. I am not afraid to go outside into the unknown and start over again with new people, new job, new state, new lover, new friends, new church. I've done it before and l will gladly do it again.

What it feels like to Leave (A sequel to Post From 2013 "What It Feels Like To Be Left" )

It feels like you start running and you don’t feel pain anywhere. You run free and wild and you feel alive. An immediate release of positive hormones flow through your veins, like that first hit of tobacco or the first high of snorting a pill. The way your blood feels relaxed when alcohol sinks in. Your brain smiles like how you feel twenty minutes after taking an Ambien. It feels good.

You arrive at a sweeping open field with grass as tall as you and bright red flowers greeting you at every turn. The weather is PERFECT. It's beautiful and amazing. You stop running but your body still feels the wind as if you are on a boat. You look up and notice the sky and how perfectly deep and bright it is. You pat yourself on the back for running away. Good job! You left! Exactly what you were supposed to do! You did amazing. If you had never left, you never would have seen the color of this sky. You run and jump and frolic like a child. You smell the red flowers. You smell the tall grass. You absorb it. You feel amazing. You touch everything. Every sense in your body feels alive.

After a little while, the adrenaline begins to fade. You feel a twinge of hunger. A twinge of missing the person you just ran away from. You realize that your hand stings ever so slightly from slamming the door. You notice that your throat is faintly hoarse from screaming at the person you left. You resist the urge to glance back in that direction. You quote some positive bologna to yourself about how you only look up and forward and how you did amazing and have good boundaries for cutting someone out of your life. You shiver. It's kind of cold. I wish I brought a jacket. But it's okay. I love to feel the wind. I am not afraid, you tell yourself. I like leaving people. I am good at it, you remind yourself. I am glad I left them. I am glad I am in this place. You refuse to feel the exhaustion sinking in. Determined to be right, you settle down in the weeds and try to find distractions.

Picking apart a flower, you realize the daylight is fading. Its no matter, you say, I will be fine out here. You wish there was some music to distract your thoughts that you are trying so desperately to not think. But it’s quiet. And now it’s dark.

And even though you are proud and you don’t want to undo it, even though you feel strong and in control, somehow, in that cold, dark night you can't help but feeling regret. You feel shock. You wonder if you really acted that impulsively. Can you possibly close your eyes and wake up back with that person? You can't help but begin to feel that although you ran away, you were in fact, left, because there's nobody behind you. Nobody can run as fast as you and the truth of the matter is, you would have fought them if they did. If someone ever (which no one has ever) opened the door and screamed for you to come back, you would have flipped them the bird. You would have warned them not to follow you.

People do try to stop you. They stop you when you put your hand on the door knob. They tease and you smile. They slap your hand away and say "no, no" and you smile like you were kidding. But you were serious. And you sit there and wait and wait until you get up the courage to leave. And then one day, you tell yourself as if you are getting a piercing, don’t think just do it! If you think about it, you know you will talk yourself out of it, so you just go! And off you go. And they let you. Because you never leave when you think there’s a chance you can stay. You leave when you know they are tired, they are worn out, they are done with you.

I keep waiting for that person. That one person that will chase me and run and run and run past the point of exhaustion for me. When I warn them to get away, they will continue running. When I push them off, they will patiently keep following me at a distance until I am ready to change my mind. People tell me this exists. I believe them. I have not met that person but I do believe it’s real. I often wonder if it only exists in God. I don’t think anyone has energy to pursue me except God and sometimes I don’t even think He’s up for the task.

So you sit there even though the weeds are itchy. And you cry. And you scream. And you feel the deepest loneliness that feels similar to starving. Loneliness feels the way your body feels when you haven’t eaten for three days. Loneliness feels like panic, like emptiness, like an all consuming leprosy that eats away at your body. But you deal with it for a long time and slowly - very, very slowly, you get used to the field. And someone new comes along and you get to know them. You think they are fine and things are fine but you cautiously glance at the doorway and move your hand down to your pocket so you can grab the doorknob and run away again if you need to.

That is what it feels like to leave someone.