Author’s Note: Sometimes all you need is the first part of a first sentence to really get you going.
One evening, when I was a teeny tiny four year old girl, I found myself quite melancholy. I laid on our 80’s style, quilted navy floral couch in our townhouse-style apartment and cried. My face pressed flat on the seat cushions facing the back of the couch. My finger traced the quilted stitching around the flowers. My tears ran across my face and absorbed into the seat cushion creating black dots on the upholstery.
My mom was with me. My dad walked in through the door and I heard him ask, “What’s wrong with her?”
“She’s sad,” my mom replied.
He sat down on the couch and asked me what was wrong. I continued to trace the outline of the stitching. As the words, “I’m so lonely,” slipped past my lips, a deluge of sobs erupted from my, well, everything.
Mom and Dad were married at the time and we all lived together. I had been to daycare that day so had lots of fun interactions with kids and teachers. There was just something about that evening that made me overwhelmingly lonely.
As a grownup, I often remember that vignette. I remember that it was okay that I was sad. It was okay that I was lonely. I was helped to feel not sad and not lonely. How often, as grownups, have we felt the way I did as a kid, but we don’t have the room or support to feel it? Too often.
All this to say, when you can, allow yourself room to feel. Try to find support to feel. You can do your best to push something away and not feel it, but it’s always waiting there; hiding behind your bravest face.
Sparks 