All wrapped up

Several people have told me that they wanted to talk to me about how I was feeling over the past few months, but in one way or another I was unresponsive.  My dad wrote, "I had the impression you didn't want to talk in depth about it when related topics came up.  I sometimes wondered if you were simply your usual superhuman self, handling it far better than anybody could expect from typical people in the same circumstances.  Or perhaps you chose therapists or close friends as your outlet for deep sharing."  A few others expressed similar feelings, and I think I recognize now that I shut down sometimes and don't want to share my emotions, even when there are good opportunities.  Over the past few days, several people have asked me how I have been feeling & what I've been experiencing, and I have to remind myself to answer honestly and not brush it off.  

I'm interested that I am going through all of these reactions now, rather than when I was in the middle of Dave's most severe depression.  I think that at that time, I was so busy trying to figure out what to do, trying to know how to help Dave and to make it through each day or each week, that I didn't take time to figure out what I was feeling.  There wasn't time, frankly.  

I think that maybe when Dave's depression got really bad, I grabbed hold of the emotions I was feeling, like someone grabbing on to a piece of toilet paper from the roll.  

Then I kept hurrying and scurrying and turning around, until I ended up a complete mess of emotions and didn't know where to start to unravel it all.

When people ask you how you're doing, it's hard to say, "Well....  I don't really know...  Let me think out loud about it for a few minutes until I can figure it out."  But that's what I'm starting to do, and I think I'm getting down to the last few layers of emotions.  Soon I'll be free, and in all likelihood, ready to start again.