Surrendering to Feelings Without Stories

The comfort of learning to trust your heart and be vulnerable

I can’t tell whether it starts in my head or my heart or somewhere deeper and unnamed. After hours of general unease, the dark quiet of my babes room at bedtime gives it the opening it needs to overtake me. It wells up, bubbling silently until suddenly I’m under it and there is no fighting it.

I close the door behind me, careful and silent, and pad down the hallway. I go into our bedroom instead of back to the living room where the others are. In the dark cool of the empty room, I pick up the stuffed seal that fits perfectly in my arms, the one Scott bought me on our mini vacation in Seattle. I am not even fully onto the bed before the warmth of the first tear trails down my cheek.

I need hugs. I text him knowing he will come and doubting he will be surprised when he finds me shuddering with the weight of it all, but he may be just as confused as I am. The tears overtake me fully and my soul writhes inside me, pushing against the vice grip of raw, unfiltered emotion. I breathe hard, crying into Bowie’s spotted fur, my fingers clenching and my body expanding and contracting with the power of it all. My muscles hold their breath with each slow motion sob.

My body knows what it’s feeling even if my ego can’t figure the story of it.

He puts his arms around me and asks me what is wrong and I helplessly answer that I don’t know. He understands, and it doesn’t matter, even so I can’t stop the wondering as he holds me and reminds me that I am safe. He shows me without words that the why is unimportant, that what I’m experiencing is okay, reminds me that my body knows what it’s feeling even if my ego can’t figure the story of it.

In his arms I am unafraid, but my brain still churns. There is something either scary or frustrating in the not knowing. Sometimes when this happens, it is obvious where its coming from, a burst pipe under the kitchen sink. Other times, like tonight, its like water bubbling up through a storm drain. I don’t know where it came from, how long its been building, how deep the trigger point is. A million reasons and they run through my head as I shudder in sorrow.

Is it that the go go go of the week is finally done and I can let go?

Is it the out of the blue text from a friend I haven’t talked to in years?

Is it that dream I had last night about those people who I had to see last Friday after months of getting over it?

Is it Danny’s on-edge behavior, the tears that well up so easily in his eyes, that tell me he is going through one of those crazy mental/emotional growth milestones kids go through?

Is it frustration and sadness about my cat who I love more than I admit and who won’t stop peeing outside the box?

Is it that Scott is working tonight and tomorrow after all and we aren’t really any closer to his sleep patterns being normalized yet?

Is it the chores I know need to get done this weekend?

Is it hormonal, some wild burst of estrogen giving me a perimenopausal run for my money?

Is it the frustrating email exchange I had today with someone who assigned tones I didn’t intend and wouldn’t just accept a graceful ending to mismatched desires?

Is it all of these or none? Is it some other deep rending inside me that I can’t name?

Does it matter?

I am a crier, always have been and always will be. Whatever started it, I know these tears need to come, and 37 years in there is some comfort in surrendering and embracing their purpose. There’s no use trying to avoid it by thinking my way through it. There’s no way to solve the unknown and it dawns on me that the answer is inconsequential as long as the process is allowed.

In the most raw, vulnerable moments his love gently nudges me back to solid ground.

In some closet deep inside me with the door cracked just so, there is a part of me inside that’s still surprised to have a partner who supports me so fully, who empowers me to feel. He reminds me to receive whatever comes, unashamedly, without reservation. His eyes whisper to me that moments are what make up our life together and in the most raw, vulnerable moments his love gently nudges me back to solid ground.

Later I am putting Sam to bed, I settle into the chair and watch him burrow his 12-year-old body under a pile of blankets. He asks me what was happening when I was in my room. I tell him I felt sad and needed cuddles, and he asks why. I don’t really know, I admit, sometimes I just feel sad and it helps me feel better if I cry. He tells me that sometimes he feels sad too, like in the book he just read when a girl was messing up her friendships. She almost broke one of them, he says, but she fixed it.

I hope he always remembers that it is okay to feel sad sometimes, that sharing your feelings with people who can help you find your way out from under that cloud. I hope we can both remember to give ourselves permission to feel without always knowing why.

The flood has subsided, like a boiler that has let off steam I am back to a mostly inert state. I go to bed early, knowing I will wake up with puffy eyes, feeling thankful to be so surrounded by love and able to just be who I am.

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