This is long. Don't read it if you don't feel like reading right now. I'm telling you that right now.
I used to cry a lot when I was a kid.
I had really sensitive feelings back then, and "friends" back then knew it and were often able to get tears outta me pretty often. And then of course you get teased for crying so easily. Sucked.
I'm sure there were a whole lotta factors to why I ended up growing that way, but y'know, even today I'm still not "strong" in that sense. I've friends now, they tell me they hate crying and they hate seeing people they consider "strong" crying whether they're friends, parents . . . they look up to them as strong, and want to be strong like them.
Well, yesterday I saw a similar sort of strong person break down, and it was devastating. And I'm talking decades of things this person kept away from everyone . . . and then all it took was one careless, snappy response from someone for this person to lose it.
It was a long day today.
I'm kind of a strange individual in my family in this sense. My parents, my brothers . . . they're all strong people like this. Actually, no, that's not quite true. In a true "strong person" style, when my brothers are upset, tired or stressed, my brothers get quiet and moody. You don't even want to talk to them during these times because they're likely to snap at you - similar to what happened yesterday. And that's just never pleasant for anyone.
I'm sure I've quoted Pullman's The Subtle Knife to at least a few of you.
There's a passage in there where the guy, Will, has just had two of his fingers cut off and he spends the rest of the book with his hand bleeding and in pain. Early after the fact Will keeps trying to block out the pain or ignore it, and all it does is complicate everything else he's trying to do to the point that it doesn't work. Lyra, the other person, tells him he can't both block out the pain and try to do his work because it's too much to think about.
"Just sort of relax your mind," she told him, "and say yes, it does hurt, I know. Don't try and shut it out."
You can't just try to shut out the things that bother you. People don't work that way; when you just try to ignore these kinds of things, they don't go away; they just kinda sit quietly elsewhere and add to the pile of other things just kinda sitting quietly. That's what happens when you're strong, when "nothing bothers you."
It doesn't work. It does bother you, but it all comes out all at once with all the other ones at the worst possible time instead of immediately when the feelings still made sense.
I know this all sounds a lot like that therapy-type stuff we've all heard. Y'know, how it's no good to keep feelings bottled up and all that. But a lot of times being strong isn't about showing how well you can take punishment. More often than not it's about how you keep a strong face for others, or for not worrying others - you're pretending that nothing is wrong.
I've had people tell me they want to be that rock - that anchor point for others. They want to be strong so they can be there for others. But as time goes on and you learn about just how much punishment that rock has had to take to keep you anchored, well . . . that's just no good to realise later that even if the ship can then sail off, the rock then crumbles unknown into the sea.
So where does that leave me today?
I'm still pretty emotional, and whenever we have to have "family meetings" to get all of our feelings out in the open I'm pretty much always the first (and usually only) person to have the waterworks going. Is it pretty? Heck no, my face scrunches up, my eyes get puffy . . . I can't do that pretty Hollywood crying.
Does that bother me? Not at all. 'Cause I will take five nights of slow, quiet tears over the convulsive, violent ones that come with when someone finally goes past the breaking point. It's part of the reason why we hate to see "strong" individuals crying - it's horrible to witness! Along with it being very out of character to the people, they're gasping and having difficulty breathing normally; their voices are cutting in and out to the erratic breathing; they're still trying so hard not to cry, and all it does is tear them apart inside and out; emotionally, they're not present for the next while.
No, not me. Never again. If I have to shed a tear or two while consoling a friend, I'll do it if it means I never have to break down uncontrollably like that.
I'm not strong like that. I'm very aware of my limits and respect them. What I am, however, is flexible. When the bad times hit, I can roll with them. Yes, sometimes life sucks, I know. It'll knock you down harder than anything else. It has nothing to do with how well you can take the blows; it has everything to do, however, with what you're going to do after you get back up.
I don't know what else to really say, and I know this whole thing has been far from organized. All I really have left to mention is that these days I'm a far happier person than I was when I was a kid. I'm not secretly angry deep inside, I don't feel a lot of stress in my day to day life, I don't snap at people for the wrong reasons because I just feel like being angry for a while . . . I mean granted, this laid-back lifestyle has not been kind to my professional life and it's probably the reason why some people see me as not taking life seriously or flat-out wasting it. I'm not a great goal-setter, I'm not especially proactive . . . I don't seem to be worried about my future . . . but you know what?
That's an anchor point that might roll and rise with the tide . . . but it won't break.
