Breathing Through a Bendy Straw

It’s raining.
​ For the past few days there have been periods of steady, rhythmic rain drumming against the windows that box me in. I love this sort of downpour. It quiets the world in ways that fly under the radar of cultivating discontent.

There has been so much discontent lately.
The kind that’s sticky and alludes to unfiltered pain. The sort of dissatisfaction with life’s happenings that oozes from others desperate for a place to put it down. Frantic word vomit sputters onto those unarmed, unequipped, and many times unwitting.

I tell my husband frequently that I wish I possessed the skills to be mean. To be able to bluntly shut down something that is not serving me, and to be able to relentlessly attend to my own needs above others. Something in the universe disarmed this ability within my soul and added an extra splash of empathy. My empathy for other’s experiences outweighs my own needs time and time again. It’s chronically exhausting.

Lately I feel like Lucille’s sign ‘Psychiatric Help 5 cents’ has been nailed to my forehead. Those I know in different ways have been showing up with such forceful, palpable pain it’s slammed me into a chokehold of holding space. Disarming internal bombs before they detonate. Panic whipping wild within their eyes.

Their eyes.
Windows to the soul when in a romantic setting, but geysers of trauma in a realistic sense lately.

I just want to hide.

The work I do is raw, vulnerable, heavy, and inevitability dark. There’s hardly a day that escapes from the reminders of how woven tragedy is into our DNA. I’ve been trained on how to compartmentalize and hold space, but y’all, I am just a human.

When I leave work, I am breathing through a bendy straw. My chest is tight, and my heart is shaking off the ache of others. My mind hurriedly attempts to leave all the ick at the door. I am thumbing through the pages of my memories or current events that donate levity to my soul. Thankfully, my daughter and husband are good at these contributions.

I know I know.
“You need to be better at holding boundaries.”

But how do you hold boundaries in the moment of distinct agony?
How do you death grip your bendy straw when the other’s straw broke in half?
How do you turn away from the eyes that haunt you long after the gaze has been broken?

These are the moments my soul cries out for Sadie. The creature who traded my bendy straw out for a proper snorkel. It feels so silly to still grieve an animal as hard as I do. But who would really know?

Sometimes, other’s view of me makes me feel so disposable. Like my depth doesn’t have a place because it doesn’t appear to be hemorrhaging. Most of the time, I am used to this, and I am at fault for giving in. But other times, I crave to be seen. I have a deep need to remember the good. Not just for levity, but for survival.

We all do.
It’s within humanity’s blueprint to play. It’s tethered to the foundation of resiliency to catch our breath in the face of the unimaginable. Even our mechanisms for crying demand we ‘come up for air’, as we can only heavy cry for 10–15-minute intervals before our system drags up to the surface for a break. Seriously. It’s kind of neat.  

It is vital to our livelihood to remember the good. Even if it feels like utter bullshit in that moment.
​
Because here’s the thing.
It’s temporary. Every single bit of this life. That feeling, that job, that situation, that age. None of it is doomed for permanence. Even when permanence is begged for. Life is a tumultuous rollercoaster crowded by twists, turns, drops, and highs you never fathomed. It’s up to us to decide how we lean into the turns, or shy away from the chaos.