the storm

I realized, through the power of my own words, that the storm is inside of me.

I was struggling with a lot of things yesterday. My friends returned earlier that I had expected and I felt a bit like a failure for not having finished cleaning, packing, and clearing out of the room. Then there was a bit of family time over melon and popcorn. During that time, I felt like an observer. One person had been added to the table and it seemed to change everything and nothing at all. I watched as the interactions happened and realized that I had no real idea of how to participate or be involved in the conversation.

My family was never like that. There was always tension. It was always serious. We really didn't laugh or even smile together. Suddenly, I was sad, envious, frustrated all at the same time. Once again, I wanted to crawl into a hole and just not ever come out. I heard everything as a reminder of all I didn't have, all I wished that could have been.

As I was writing some of these things to a friend, I was answering a question and it truly dawned on me that it wasn't that the circumstances and people around me that were making me feel all of these things. It was the very storm inside of me. I was making me feel these things. The storm inside me was making me feel these things.

It is sort of relieving to think that it is not about where I am or who I am around that pushes me to that point. It really does have to do more with the climate inside me, if the storm is raging or the sun is shining. So now my million dollar question is how do I get that storm which currently resides inside of me, out of me? How does the storm get out?