I cried today...

I cried...tears pouring down my face. It wasn't that sexy, silent cry we all sort of hope for where the tears cling gently to our perfectly mascaraed eyelashes before rolling silently down. It was the snot everywhere, hair stuck in my mouth, shoulders shaking sort of cry. A sniffling, gasping inhales and shuddering exhales sort of cry. I had warned her that's how it would be when it happened. I had no idea it would happen today. I guess we can't always predict these things.

It wasn't pain. It wasn't pleasure. It wasn't anger. It wasn't some kind of pent up frustration. It just...was. I can't explain the whys, and I'm actually at a place where I don't mind that.

The tears started quietly, when the first trickles of blood ran out of the 3 small holes left when Shay pulled the first needle out. I was sitting up so it didn't pool as it typically does. It ran in tiny streams down my sensitive sides. The blood starts warm, and then the path it leaves cools quickly. But even as it makes it's journey downward, what it leaves behind is still felt. It's not just that leading edge that I feel, it's long lines of hot and then tepid and finally cold blood.

I felt warm and calm, even as I cried. The blood felt...clean. I can't explain that, but it's the right word for me to use. Even as Shay tucked cloths around my waist to catch the blood before it hit my clothing, it felt clean. Even as I glanced down through tears to see the blood drip on the cloths and run in neat rows, staining the off white cloth with bright stripes, it felt clean. Cleasing sounds cliche, but perhaps that's close to correct.

I wasn't really thinking much. My mind wasn't processing anything in particular. I did sort of half heartedly apologize to Shay, although nothing made me feel like I needed to. Her shushing as she continued to pull needles and let more blood run was the only gentle reassurance I needed to let the tears keep flowing. It was okay.

When the blood subsided, it seemed like so did the tears. Like they were sensations and emotions that were linked together. My mind was in that flat, quiet, exhausted place crying puts you. The good one though, not the bad, hopeless and alone one. I leaned against the couch, face first, but very carefully. My brain is never really quiet enough that I don't worry about things like getting snot on Shay's furniture. She started cleaning my back with long strokes of a gauze pad soaked with alcohol, and then squeezed alcohol over the entire thing. The cold rivers of fluid passed over each series of holes with little pin pricks of sharp sting and floated me off in a new, happy way. Placing a hand on my back, she asked if she could leave me briefly to go to the bathroom. I said I was okay and she went quickly to the bathroom and I heard water running and splashing. It sounded like hand washing. I was immediately frightened and concerned she had stuck herself pulling a needle out, or was somehow covered in blood and was washing her hands. A small amount of annoyance flashed through my brain that she had excused herself to deal with that without letting me know. Then she returned.

She returned and knelt behind me and began washing my back. She had only been wetting a wash cloth so she could clean the streams of dried blood from me. The trust thing...still needs some work clearly. So does the anxiety control I guess. I think I'll get there.

But...today I cried. I only apologized once, and when she said it wasn't necessary, I believed her. Afterward, I opened up to enough to talk about it. It helped me understand what my tears meant to her, so I could embrace them more fully and not feel like they were unacceptable in anyway. Growth...this stuff isn't easy.

Then we drank this tea/hot chocolate concoction that seriously rocks. The End.

Leap

Sometimes it is necessary to do things that make us feel stronger by allowing ourselves to be weaker. There is a lot of strength in saying, "I can't." or "I don't know how." There is power in saying, "I need help...I'm not getting this right." For me personally, there is also a lot of weakness. I focus on that too much and that makes it hard to see the strength and power beyond the weakness. It's hard to admit that I can't handle it, hard to ask for help, and hard X3 when I have to trust someone in that way. But, I did all that.

I went under protection.

It was something I had never actually considered till it was offered to me. Then the more I contemplated, the more I felt like it was something I wanted to accept. As much as it was something I needed "done" for me, it was also something I needed to do for myself.

The easiest part of the decision was that I didn't think she saw it as weakness, even as I felt that in my acceptance. She had never treated me as "less than", even when I was open enough to admit I didn't always handle things the way I knew I should. She was never the least bit smug or "above me" when offering me advice or mentoring me. Since accepting her offer of protection, she's never really acted like it was a big deal. She takes it seriously, but not in a way that makes me fret over it. It's becoming something I not only enjoy, but that I place great value on having in my life.

For me, this was never about a pride thing. This was about a trust thing. This was about a vulnerability thing. When I considered her offer, I could admit to myself that not only did I need this type of support, but I needed to learn to build trust in this emotional way. This very specific vulnerable, emotional trust.

I have learned to get to a pretty comfortable level of trust with many people in my life, but I still hold the really hard stuff close to me. Protect it as all my own to deal with. I don't want to trouble people. I don't want to put people out. The result is, I trust people to hurt me, but trusting them emotionally, is a whole other step. I didn't know how to start. Every time I tried and was sharing emotionally, I ended up at home, overwhelmed with guilt. Upset and disappointed in myself. Panic and anxiety overwhelming me, sure I was being seen as weak, troublesome, annoying...a complainer.

I know that sometimes I just have to *decide* certain things mentally and then work toward making my emotions catch up. So I did that. I made the terrifying, completely mental decision, that I was going to trust. Just trust. Start with one person and see if this "decision" type trust building worked. Flip the switch and just trust. Period.

Genuine leap of faith.

Maybe it's a stupid idea and I'll regret it in the end. But, if I try in this way, with one person, maybe I'll figure out a way to let trust grow. So I'm going to trust. I'm going to share, hopefully preemptively, the things she might need to know about me. I'm going to let her help...even when it hurts and makes me stammer and feel uncomfortable. I'm going to ask fewer questions and assume that she's not making random decisions that might hurt me. I'm going to believe she values the trust she receives, because she knows how literally I pry it from my own hands to pass to her.

I'm working to feel less guilt about the time she spends teaching me things. I already worry less that I bother her. I'm going to, by needle or knife if necessary, slow my brain down more often, and not obsess that I'm not doing things "right". I'm going to say thank you when I'm thankful, and believe that she knows that I mean that. I'm going to let go of apologies that choke my throat and muddle my brain when I somehow twist everything into something I've done wrong. I'm trying to let go of how I could make her life easier if I wasn't this...whatever I am, for her to "deal" with.

I *trust* that at the very core of it all, she offered. I *trust* that she knows what she offered, what she wants, and what she's doing...even while I'm winging all that in my own life. For now, I'm still trusting all that because I decided mentally I was going to. Surprisingly though, it does seem like I'm cautiously trudging emotionally along to catch up to my brain.