Hot Air Balloon

A week ago we found out that I was pregnant, and two days ago I found out I am not. We do not know what happened. We do not know. Do. Not. Know. These are three of my least favorite words when put together in a sentence.

I live in a world where I find peace knowing I have say in my circumstances. Where I have a voice that can make decisions, a brain that can lead me to answers, a heart that can help me feel and cope along the way. 

Unfortunately there is another world I live in where I have no say in my circumstances and neither my brain nor my heart can lead me to what I want. This world is scary and it also makes me angry. I feel helpless in this world. 

The world where I have a say collides with the world where I do not have a say. These two worlds are constantly colliding, and trying to knock the other out of it's orbit. 

For the last 11 years I have been self-taught that the emotions I feel during the battle of my worlds are to be numbed with medication. When medication failed to save me during the battle of my worlds any other numbing substance would do. 

Without having these substances to numb the strikes, blows, bullets, and bombs that these endless wars bring down on me; I have turned to another release: Anger. Fits of anger. After the anger comes crippling depression. Do these fits of anger last long? No. Does the depression last long? No. All these two emotions do is allow me to release years of emotions in a single moment. I yell and scream, and then cry and finally sleep from exhaustion. This round of emotions typically last one day. By the next day I force myself to live as if nothing ever happened. When I mean nothing I do not mean the angry fit. I go on as if nothing tremendously painful has ever happened in my life. 

I have become a master at ignoring pain, masking pain, distracting myself from pain, working through pain, loving through pain, laughing through pain, organizing through pain, cleaning through pain, sleeping through pain, socializing through pain. I can literally cover up my pain with absolutely
anything.

I run from pain until it bursts through me like a popping hot air balloon. The hot hair balloon will deflate, the pressurized gas keeping it afloat will typically ignite, and then everything will be consumed with flames until the balloon, and all it's contents come crashing down to the earth below, hitting with a bang, and finally exploding into nothingness 

I feel exactly like the hot air balloon. My emotions burst through my mask, igniting me, lighting me up into burning flames until I crash down to the ground, leaving me as nothing. 

When I found out I was not pregnant I went through the hot air balloon cycle. It happened in a matter of 2 hours. After I slept with exhaustion dreaming into nothingness. When I awoke from the fall, I glued on another mask, and glued the mask tighter; ensuring it will seal in all the emotions: anger, grief, confusion, depression...

I only know how to feel at catastrophic limits. Unless a feeling is overpowering, my masks prevent me from feeling anything.

When I receive a hug, I am not feeling comfort or love. No, when I am hugged my mask forces me to listen to my battling worlds. "How long I must hug this person in return?" "I must get out of this person's grasp quickly; or else the glue keeping my mask on will crack, and all of my emotions will fall out."

Revealing me.