For better or for worse, being a therapist means that you are pretty hyper-aware of your feelings. Maybe not exactly in the moment, I mean, sometimes you just know you are really uncomfortable and you can't figure out what's going on, but with a little bit of processing and perspective I can usually come up with a name for mine (managing them, of course, is a totally different thing), and can tell the difference between them.
So for now, I just continue to be amazed at how I can feel so many of them over the course of each (and every) 24-hour period.
There are the big ones, yes, the basic rhymers -- mad, sad, glad. Then there are all the other ones, trailing along like toilet paper on your shoe... Mad and self-righteous feel good for a little while (hey, that jerk), but are quickly countered with defensiveness (but, really, he's not a jerk, and I wouldn't have dated a jerk anyway). Compassion skips out onto the playground (I know this sucks for him too) but is quickly tripped and has its lunch money stolen by confusion (it's complicated to find yourself empathizing with the person who broke your heart). Then sheer loneliness and missing someone pops up in the stew (as I seem to be out of practice being alone with my thoughts), but on occasion I can season it with relief (cost of a round trip across town in a fuel-efficient gas powered vehicle: $5.23. Wondering if the person you love will ever want to reduce the distance: priceless).
I think my saving grace as I "move on" is just that I've promised to let myself feel whatever I feel, to tell the truth about it, and not to be sorry for any of it.
No comments:
Post a Comment