This picture was taken a few weeks ago after an especially hard crying session. When I look at that photo now, I can’t help feeling a sort of pride for how far I know I have come throughout this journey, especially recently. I have wanted all along to be “strong,” yet still had so many nights feeling alone with my pain that I tried to hide the depth of from my children (or sometimes the world), trying to keep pushing and pushing and PUSHING through the hard, worried that it would not take much to tip me over past the breaking point.
No, that pride does not come from feeling like I am crying less often than before, as if crying were some sort of weakness. Rather, there is pride in the fact that I can see I am learning how to actually embrace the sadness and the tears, instead of resisting or resenting them. Noting how much better I have become at recognizing and paying attention to that “building” feeling of my grief, the pressing weight that can grow heavier and heavier until it simply has to be released. And so I welcome, sometimes even encourage, the tears. There is a sort of cleansing that happens, or sometimes if I’m lucky even an overall sense of lightening, that comes afterward. Somehow the tears now seem more of a way I’m moving forward, rather than being mired down or feeling like the pain would consume me if I truly gave in.
Don’t know if that all made sense. But there are nights now that I actually seek out things I know will bring the tears, because I know that I will feel better afterward. It’s certainly not every night, or probably even most nights, but it happens all the same. And that progress is huge for me.
I am also noticing that I’m getting better at sitting with solitude, handling loneliness. I can now see that for most of this past year I have done a lot of things to try and suppress many of those uncomfortable feelings, especially loneliness, or to distract myself from the solitude (like avoiding going to bed). Lately I’ve found myself actually looking forward to those quiet moments, when the kids are in bed and the house is quiet, to spend time with my journal, in my scriptures, on my knees. That’s been huge too.
It’s been funny, but I’m finding that often after I will admit something on Meal Train that has been hard (i.e. reading, loneliness, even processing trauma, etc.), that then it will start to feel easier, get a bit better. Maybe there’s power in simply acknowledging things. Maybe it’s because I know many of you will then pray specifically for me and my family. Maybe subconsciously it seems to issue a challenge to myself to work on something. I don’t know. But I do know that while this past month and a half has been difficult, I am continuing to make progress and growth, to not just get through but feeling like I am stronger by doing so. That thought brings on an entirely different sort of tears.