To Cope

I’ve always had different ways of coping with events/things when they get difficult.  I know everyone does it differently…

I write.  I write and write and write like there is no tomorrow.  I have journals all over my parents house filled with things from over the years.  I probably have one each for when my three grandparents passed away and for the breakups that I’ve gone through.  I write about anything from what I’m thinking, why I think something might have happened or not, where I am, anything.  Sometimes I just write lists of words that come to mind when I think of the subject. 

But I just write.  I let everything come out as fast as I can get it on paper.  And I don’t type it.  I always write it in a book/journal.  I do have some journal entries on my computer, but the majority are in my paperback journals.  I believe that you can feel/see emotion just by the way that someone writes on a piece of paper.  The loops and curls and squiggles are significant in more ways than we think.

So within the past two days I have written.  I have written so much that my hands have cramped and I’ve not only cried tears of emotional pain but physical pain.  Sometimes I think I can’t write fast enough as all my thoughts are running through my head.  It’s amazing the things I write down and don’t know it at the time, until I go back and look at it.  Sometimes I’m angered or saddened by what I’ve written, but often times rereading leads me to think of other things and continue writing.  All in all, it helps me get all my feelings out; all the sadness, the frustration, the pain, the heartache.  And it helps me remember all the good times too, no matter how saddening they might make me.

Not only do I write in a journal, but I write poems when things get hard.  I can knock out about 10 every hour if I’m really on a role.  Once I wrote over 300 poems in two days…and they were different and unique in every single one.  Again, I write all of these in a journal, and to this day I have only had anyone read a handful of them (I know I posted a few, maybe a dozen back last year, and that was hard in itself; and a first!) because sometimes I think their either suck, are repetitive, or can’t be understood.  I range them anywhere from the ones that rhyme, to haikus, to one liners, or words.

In the past few days I have only written a few of them, surprisingly, as this has seriously been one of the hardest things I’ve been through since it was so shocking/out of no where.  I can feel it building up, and I think they’re going to start coming in droves soon; but as of right now I think I’m still to numb to get the emotions to come out and become exposed on paper.

On top of those, I also reach out.  God do I reach out; I call/write to as many of my friends as humanly possible because they are always able to pull me out of the dark holes that I can feel myself falling into.  I’m a needy person, I always have been.  In this case I have never had more support from my family since I’m so far away, but also from many of my real and blogger friends.  Being that I’m out so far away from everyone and everything makes reaching out very hard (and things even worse that I had ever imagined they would be), but luckily (and unfortunately) I have friends who have been through those circumstances and have kind words to help me through the rough parts.  It may sound selfish or like I’m playing the sympathy card, but it makes me feel good to have people reassure me that things will get better; that things happen for a reason; that this isn’t the end and that even when thing are at their worst, there is a light at the end.  And as hard as it is to believe it, it helps to hear it over and over to know that it these things really will happen.

And then there is running.  This is a really big one.  The way that I feel the pain just melting away and come out of every pore that they have been in and keeping me from healing.  Pounding out the miles on the pavement in a way helps me run away from things for a while, even though most of the time the things I want to run from the most are in my head.  But running helps me clear my mind; helps me think things through more clearly; and lets me escape to a place where most people won’t be paying attention to me and I can cry my eyes out (since you can’t tell the difference between the sweat and the tears. Hah). 

So today I had my long run, and I ran and ran and ran and let it all out.  I even ended up getting myself lost a few times because I wasn’t paying attention.  But I ran hard, I ran strong, and then I cried.  At one point I had to grab onto a tree to keep myself upright or I was going to fall over and probably not get back up.  I pounded out 7.5 miles in 1 hr, 8 minutes, and 46 seconds.  It was pretty close to the pace that I was aiming for, even if the whole time I felt like I was going way way faster.  But it’s one run towards healing my broken heart, and it won’t be the last.  There will be many many more in the future.

So I’m currently trying to bring things together in my head.  I’m trying to piece everything together and keep breathing…keep moving forward instead of falling backwards.  I’ve appreciated all of your comments/emails/messages with help and kind words more than you will ever imagine and taking every one of them to heart; because you know for sure that they are what is going to keep it from falling apart into even more pieces.

I have no food pictures for you because really, as my appetite has disappeared and eating has become forced.  Most of the time instead of eating like I should, I have a hot compress pressed to my sinuses to keep my face from swelling up like a balloon (too much crying; ruins a pretty face!).  But I promise I’ll be back with the photos soon.  I’m still eating of course, but it’s nothing worth posting about.

Thank you all again.  Your support is phenomenal and beyond anything I would have ever imagined.  Hugs to all of you;  I don’t know where I’d be right now without you.

PS I’m sorry Erin, but I jumped on the bandwagon:

Twitter: rainforestgurl