.Catching My Breath.

9/26/09

Anything triggers it. Right now....a song....one I surely wasn't expecting. The feelings I thought I could escape for a moment or a minute or an hour are suddenly right back here....wanting to cry but still trying to catch my breath.

Forgive me for this...but there are days when I wish you could know this pain for just a moment...a fleeting memory...so you could know, just for a second, how deep this well goes so I wouldn't feel so crazy when I try to explain the sudden change of emotions.

And, just before catching your breath, so many things flash in your mind-good and bad---memories you love and days you wish you could forget... All while people are telling you it's ok and it's normal to feel this way...except that, inside, you want to fight this 'crazy' part of yourself that is, often, unrecognizable.

Then, you catch your breath....and you cry. Sometimes it's sobbing. Other times you can laugh while you cry. Most of the time it's a steady, heart felt cry...you feel your face turning red, you cry out for answers, and you never know precisely when it will stop. You apologize for crying when people are around...like it will make it a bit less awkward when, in the middle of the grocery store or Christmas section, people are staring....and when you try to speak a sentence, it's often broken by the sound of you catching your breath in betwen sobs. Even worse, when the people who know you look at you, helpless, wanting to take your hurt away and all you can do is cry harder because even you don't know what could make it better in that moment....and usually, you always know just what to do.

Finally, when it's over, and the tears have stopped, sometimes you smile...sometimes you're angry...you often ponder if it will ever get easier...and sometimes you wonder why THAT "thing" that you've known so well or heard a million times seemingly sucker punched you....but, for me, mostly I think about hope...that the light at the end of the tunnel will someday be closer.....

....Just to get me through until the next time I lose my breath