Emotions are funny things to me - they just take over, sometimes out of nowhere. Even when I know WHY I'm feeling something, even when it's positive, it can sometimes be too much to handle.
The other day, we discovered that one of my favorite Gilbert and Sullivan operettas was going to be performed in a couple of weeks here in NYC. Since my husband is also a G&S fan and had never seen Yeoman of the Guard, he went on line and found ORCHESTRA seats. I've never had orchestra seats to a show, and it's been decades since I've seen a Gilbert and Sullivan and I was tremendously excited. So I bounced on the bed. Yes, like a small child, and probably for the same reason. Children jump around and bounce and so on when they're excited because they are overloaded with energy and it has to go someplace. Adults know how to handle that energy (and maybe are too jaded to get so excited. I don't know.) BTW,I didn't stand up and use my bed as a trampoline. I just sat and bounced. I feel the need to say that. I haven't used a bed as a trampoline since I WAS a small child. I don't need to break furniture or myself.
I didn't need to figure out what I was feeling then, just that it was good. If something is good, why worry about what it is? Yes, I was a bit overloaded but the outlet was fun and the reason was happy and it didn't matter. I probably could name the emotions if I needed to, but happy is enough, right?
Today, though. Today was something else. Things to note - I was feeling pretty good. Nothing was irritating me physically, I was comfortably in my own home with a good book and no responsibilities beyond making sure Shabbat lunch was warmed up in time. I skipped shul so I could decompress from the trip we took over New Year's weekend. Even my blood sugar was cooperating.
At the end of lunch, and more or less general chatter, I happened to see one of my Chanukah presents - a critical copy of Love's Labor's Lost, one of my favorite Shakespeare plays. I was explaining WHY I like this relatively obscure and rarely performed play - that the ending totally transforms the play from a farce into something else and that feels very modern and interesting to me - and I paused at what was to me a dramatic moment. And my husband chose to fill that with an out-of-context and distracting quip. And I got disturbed and told him why and...instead of letting it escalate he stayed quiet. Only that didn't help. At that point, though, nothing he did would have helped.
I got more disturbed, even through the long grace after meals. I went to our bedroom alone and tried to sort it out - tried to put a name to what I was feeling and to see if that would make a difference. Because I so much...stuff inside my head that thinking was hard. There's only so much room in my head, and it can get crowded in there. I couldn't concentrate on my book, either. And putting a name to emotions is not an easy job. I cried a little and I hit the bed and then the names came.
I was angry and frustrated (two emotions. Even worse.) I had been interrupted, my point had been lost and I felt belittled. I had words for the feelings and for why I felt that way. So I started talking to myself - telling myself this is what I was feeling and the equally frustrating thing that I had no outlet - I could not figure out a way of defusing them.
And I could say so out loud, and Jon heard and said he understood why. He'd apologized earlier but I literally didn't hear. Entirely possible with all the noise in my head. And he offered to let me hit him (not that I would have at that point.) But the noise started to fade. All the things I needed to do earlier didn't seem meaningful. And I could read. And a few minutes of reading later, it was gone - all the anger and frustration defused ITSELF. I probed for it in my mind and it wasn't there. I could and can remember it being there, but it wasn't there anymore. It was QUIET again.
This was NOT a meltdown. This was just being angry over something maybe worth being angry. I don't know. I certainly hope so. But I could have fed it, obsessed over it, made it bigger. I've done that. By naming it - you know those stories? Where true names have power, so magic workers (good and bad) hide them? How the miller's daughter vanquished Rumplestiltskin by saying his true name? I found the true names and they left me alone.
I've always known emotions had names. I just didn't know how to apply them.
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