Coming out of the Dark

The funk that was weighin' me down is leaving, and I'm quite relieved.


My visit with the social worker was good stuff. I've never talked to anyone, and the outcome of it was different than I had anticipated. First, I imagined that discussing my feelings would be an immediate unburdening. Instead, like any therapy, what I did was make the necessary work clear, with some tools to help. Lou recommended writing about my feelings for 4 straight days, 20 minutes at least at a time at the same time each day, and then letting it go. I have yet to do this. But am moving past my feelings, and have been sleeping, and feeling uplifted. Sleep makes a tremendous difference in my ability to be present and receptive to all the joy that exists in my life. I'm so grateful for those many nights of sleep...

What was so validating about my visit were such simple things-

-Lou acknowledging that "Yes" all that I've been through is hard. As an objective person on the side, he could look at it all, and say, "yeah, that's a lot, Emmy." Wow. Through my tears I had to acknowledge, "I don't know why that feels so good, but it does. Just hearing you say that."

-The simple statement that struggling through Elliot's health does not negate my love for him. That was such a gift. Wow. Being able to talk about how hard these challenges are, and how guilty I feel when I let the weight of it sink in was tremendously difficult. I didn't really want to open this can of worms. But I felt so relieved by Lou telling me that I can love Elliot and struggle with this all.

-Discovering that I've adapted something that I hated from my family: my dad's crazy obsession with dinner time ON TIME. I explained to Lou that I feel that I was spending too much time in the evenings at work. I then told him how much I LOVE my afternoon art time with the preschool, and rarely feel in a rush to leave. It's when I get home that I feel this self-imposed pressure to put my nose to the grindstone, and get dinner made by 6 pm. This intense rushing that I do gets in the way of the evening walk, or backyard playtime that the kids often want to do. I'm not even hungry when I'm doing this. As I answered Lou's question of "where does this come from" with "I don't know" I thought about my Mom's crazy rushing every evening, and my dad's petulant frustration if dinner wasn't made by 6:30. The lightbulb went off. Yikes! I've done so much to marry a man not like my father, but what have I done? Lou's comfort was so easy: It's easier to get rid of the dad in your head. It's a good thing you didn't marry someone with that expectation. It would be much harder to change him. So now I'm working on ejecting the dad in my head from our family traditions. Sorry dad. It's not working for me. (My dad doesn't know what a blog is. Otherwise, I wouldn't write about this).

I imagine if I was doing my homework, these good feelings would double. I'm going to try that tonight.