The Feel

I have felt really uncomfortable lately. Not in a way that I can necessarily pinpoint, more in an anxious, about to jump out of my skin kind of way. I was talking to my therapist about it this afternoon, and she suggested that maybe this is the first time I have really allowed myself to feel a strong emotion.

I sat for a minute with that statement. Feeling for the first time? How could that be? I'm 32 years old, how could it be that I have never really felt emotion?

Then I realized she was right. I have spent all of my adult life self-medicating, usually with food. If this had happened 10 years ago, I would be face-down on the couch, intermittently stuffing my face with whatever sounded appealing at the time. I always had food, or the comfort of bulimia to placate me in the past. I didn't have to feel anything, because I could just use food, booze, or purging to mask anything that felt this raw or real.

For the first time in as long as I can remember, I am feeling real emotional pain. And I'm not masking it. I'm sitting with it, paying attention to it, addressing it. It's not fun or easy. It hurts to the point where I feel it physically. But it's there, and it's evidence that I have finally addressed something inside myself. I think there was a part of me that was afraid before, afraid that what I felt was too dark and scary and that I would never recover from it. As scary and uncharted a place as I am in now, I know I'm going to be okay. It might take me a long time to get to okay, but I know it's there.

I'm trying to grasp on to moments like this, because my bad days are still outnumbering my good days. It feels precious to have these moments of clarity. I know one day the clear days will outnumber the fuzzy ones, but for now I'm here, in the feel.

I never meant to start a war
I just wanted you to let me in
I guess I should've let you win

Don't you ever say I just walked away
I will always want you

I came in like a wrecking ball
I never hit so hard in love
All I wanted was to break your walls
All you ever did was wreck me