It's Not Pretty When I Cry

I have a problem. Apparently, I try too hard to hold back my real emotions. This is not a therapist diagnosis, just one I have come to realize over the course of time. I brace myself when I enter places that might be emotionally charged, for example: the movie theater, a choir concert, the doctor's office, and the hardest of all is Church.

Before I got sick with EBV/CMV, I was fairly healthy. I might have even had some ab muscles to help me with the "brace myself emotionally" process. I was never sporting a six-pack or anything, but I had a little something under the kangaroo pouch, to help me sit up a little straighter, and breathe a little more freely.

Exercise was my therapy, and my way of clarity.

I have not been able to exercise.

With the sickness, I have lost a lot of my muscle capacity. My body often feels like a squishy-mush that I am carting around on my aching, crunchy, bones. By comparison, last year this time, I was marathon ready. I felt physically strong and unstoppable. I had endorphin-brain, and a body that helped me to feel alive and free. Sure, I struggled, but I had an outlet for my stress.

My body was my friend. My mind was taking me on long-distance runs, almost every Saturday. I would work through my emotional crud, while pounding the pavement. I would come home happy and free. I find that running in nature, is far superior to sitting in an office on a couch, and making a copay to a therapist.

Running free was last year; couch and therapist is this year.

Because this year, well... I feel like a beached whale, violently flopping around, trying to get back in the ocean, so I can be free to swim again. Flop, flop, FLOP! I am not being harsh in my self-description, or overly dramatic. I am just speaking truth; inconvenient as it may be. (Insert struggling beached whale noises here.) 

It could be true, that some of this emotional suppression was part of what released the EBV/CMV beast. The viruses can be reignited by stress. And come on, let's face it: being a widow is stressful. Even if I try to avoid stress, it is always there in my mind, because my husband is dead. (I say that bluntly, but it is reality.) If something bad happens to me now I think, "This bad thing happened, and I am a widow, too?!" You know, like there should be a limit to how much one person should be expected to handle. I am a widow, so nothing bad should ever happen to me, ever again.

That seems fair.

Sometimes I just get really mad that I am a widow. It is a good thing that God is patient with me, and my passionate, fiery, widow-prayers.

One of the reasons I hold back my emotions is because I must; at least in public places. Sometimes I even hold it back at home, too.

You see, I am not a pretty crier.

I have seen people who can cry with dignity and grace; with gentle tears, falling slowly down their creamy cheeks. These people somehow maintain their composure, their bodies remain like a statue, their stone-like faces glistening with the freshness of healthy and beautifully released emotion.

But that is not me.

No sir.

When I cry, my whole everything is involved in the ridiculous emotional-flooding process. It goes something like this...

My lip quivers uncontrollably, my face turns red and blotchy, my eyes get blood-shot, my hands start shaking, tears come pouring down my face, my entire body trembles, and I start heaving like a dog about to vomit. (Sorry for the visual, but it's accurate.) 

I have considered not holding back my real emotions in public. (Yeah, right! I think "letting it go" would be absurd.) Like I said, it was easier before I got sick to keep in the thick feelings, but now... I just can't. And I grow more and more uncomfortable in my own skin, as I go out in the world, suppressing the weight of my widow-heart.

I do think that exercise and being physically fit was so helpful to keeping those feelings at bay -- the physical and emotional is so interconnected -- but I just have not been able to consistently run, or do anything, without feeling totally wiped out for days afterwards. This darn virus has taken such a toll. I have been knocked down to destinations I would have rather not traveled. Oh, what a blessing good health really is.

I will claw my way back to healthy, joyful days. That's been promised to me. So, I hold onto that hope. I am doing what I can to heal; I leave the rest to God. I know that what I have gone through has not been without purpose and a plan.

I am not really sure what I am supposed to do though? I am tired of holding my real emotions back, everywhere I go. Bracing myself makes me exhausted, whether I am sick, or healthy. Holding the deep-stuff back is really so fatiguing. I do feel like so much of my emotional weariness is connected to the illness I have had, and this too shall pass. At least that is what God told me.

But, in the meantime, I cannot crawl into the fetal position while people are enjoying their movie and popcorn, or while sitting next to others, who are trying to be reverent at Church.

As I see it, my only option is to learn how to cry pretty...

Does anyone know how to do that?