Yesterday, I cried
30/08/24 06:46
I met a very good friend for a late lunch on Wednesday. Now that I’m feeling a bit stronger I’m making the effort to catch up with people I haven’t been able to see for a while. My soul is better for it. We had some good food and a great catch up. I had to head home after a couple of hours as that’s about my physical limit right now before I need to rest up.
As I was plonked in front of the TV, I got the sudden urge to ... cry. So I did. In reality I don’t think I could have stopped it if I’d have tried. This is not an emotion or a release I’m used to, it’s not typically a tool I have.
I’m one of those people who has a more unusual emotional gradient. The journey in/out of that ‘ok’ zone for me can be quite a steep and fast one, and the results can be physically painful and mentally draining. As a kid, those sorts of events would often result in (the now classic signs ...) of covering my ears and wanting to scream until everything stopped. As an adult, I now have a good handle on the influencers on this behaviour, and I’ve learned how to avoid those situations, so such events are rare. I see them coming, and remove myself from those scenarios. There’s perhaps some Accounts Payable teams out there that think I have more to learn on that front, but c’est la vie.
This however was not that. This felt like just a rising tide of I don’t know what - just mental exhaustion perhaps? I wasn’t/am not feeling sad or down. I am feeling run-down though, hugely. Physical effort beyond a point can ruin my day, and I haven’t quite got the hang of how much physical effort is too much. So, yes, I found myself on the sofa in front of the TV sobbing my little eyes out while having no real clue as to why, or what the point was. I then wandered off in to the land of nod only to wake up a few hours later wondering what that was all about. My face looked like I’d taken part in some slapping competition, shortly followed by a ‘who can most look like a shaved baby’.
Then I realised something. I felt so much mentally better than I had. I felt off-loaded, relieved, and other words that sound like they should be in a sentence about something else.
I’m still trying to work out why/how it happened - I’m curious like that - but I’m ok that it did. Is this the start of the use of a mental tool I’ve never really had? Who knows. Perhaps next time H makes me watch Love Actually I won’t be looking forward to watching Die Hard afterward so I get to see Alan Rickman thrown off a building; instead swapping that for a different emotion. Or perhaps not.
Anyway. A new experience was had, and it wasn’t necessarily A Bad Thing.
