Beauty in the Breaking
Why is it that humans are innately programmed to hide their emotions? Or, more specifically, those emotions deemed weak like sadness or pain? Why are we supposed to bottle it up and hide it from the world? “Buck up, little camper” often comes to mind here. What does that mean anyway? Get tougher? Deny our feelings? What? I’ve never understood the feeling of embarrassment or horror at the thought of others seeing me cry, but I have felt that and acted accordingly—shoved the pain down deep and moved forward. Or recited that practiced false phrase, “I’m fine” like my life depended on it. But why?
This past week I was off social media and even my blog, for the whole week, which is uncommon for me since becoming a published author. Now, last Monday and Tuesday was for happier reasons. (I was finishing up my prepublication checklist and turning it into my publisher for my third book, The Dead, which comes out this fall.) Then the week went all to hell with a major family emergency starting on Tuesday night and taking up all my time and focus for the next two days.
Friday morning dawned hopeful and seemed to be getting back to normal. The 20 ton knot of anxiety that had taken up residence in the center of my chest had dissipated to a manageable quarter pound knot and I was thinking things could only get better. Until my daughter called to inform me that Buck, our sweet, FOMO/velcro bullmastiff had bitten her in the face. And now my world was spiraling again. I held it together while getting all the information I could from my daughter. They’d been napping together on the couch (something they had been doing for years), and when my daughter moved to get up, Buck attacked. I calmly handled all the phone calls—my husband, my father (a physician who lives nearby to check on my girl and get her to the ER), the vet to schedule bringing my dog in to possibly be euthanized.
Emma and I had noticed a subtle shift in Buck’s demeanor over the past few weeks and had an appointment with his regular vet scheduled to evaluate him. I was thinking brain tumor because he was six, which is the time these things can start, and had been exhibiting some odd behavior that was getting worse. Buck, normally a velcro dog, had begun putting himself in his crate and staying in the back of it instead of hanging out with us. He would come up to me and push his head against my leg while his teeth chattered harshly. We saw him chewing on his front paws almost obsessively at times. He appeared anxious. So we knew something wasn’t right.
After staying calm through all the phone calls and chaos, that quarter pound knot had grown back into the 20 ton version; and as I sat down at my desk, I had a hard time keeping the emotions bottled up, especially in front of my first period class. When the bell for class change rang, I realized I could not keep everything inside; so, I did something I have never done in my many years of teaching—I handed my class over to an aide (who, by the way, is a beautiful human being). I ended up in a colleague’s empty room and just broke. All the stress and pain from the week that had become that 20 ton knot pressing on my chest was released and I just broke.
Funny thing, I broke in front of my friend, who never once made me feel weak for doing so. Whoever came up with the rule of never showing true emotion in front of others really didn’t know reality. That “Buck up, little camper” idea is stupid. Sometimes we just need to break in order to keep going. I finished my day, albeit sad and still stressed, but that knot was gone. I could breathe and face what I had to do. So remember, there is a beauty in the breaking.