Currently it’s just before midnight, and I’m house sitting for friends. Me, with the bum leg, on crutches. You should have seen me moving my things from my car, Tom Collins, into the house. It took two trips. The first one was easy enough, since all I had to do was strap my backpack and my man-bag around my neck, then crutch my way inside. Granted, navigating two screen doors (my friends have a porch) and five concrete steps was difficult. But I was determined and made it. The second trip was the real challenge, since I had to move my luggage (on rollers), my walker, and me. It looked like this–

Move my walker two feet, move my luggage two feet, move myself two feet.
Move my walker, move my luggage, move myself.
Move my walker, move my luggage, move myself.
Over and over again.

On the second trip, I figured out that it’s easier for me to go up stairs BACKWARDS instead of FORWARDS. Like, if I turn around and leave my crutches on the bottom step, I can hop backwards on to the one above it. Not that this isn’t challenging, but it’s less challenging than either putting my crutches on the higher step and pulling myself up or leaving my crutches on the lower step and hopping forwards. Anyway, every day I spend on crutches gets better and better, and this new technique is seriously a game changer, especially considering the fact that my friends not only have steps GOING INTO their house, but also have a staircase INSIDE their house leading to the room where I’ll be sleeping.

Their advice: be careful and take your time.

I’m glad I’m here. The last few days have been stressful and overwhelming. This leg situation, on top of every other situation in my life, has simply been too difficult. And whereas I won’t have as much help here as I’ve had at home (my parents have been super), I will have time to myself–time to get quiet and hear myself think, time to process, time to heal.

Yes–now that I’m inside–this is perfect. It’s been a long day. This afternoon I saw my therapist, and it was one of our tougher sessions. Mostly because I actually lay back on her couch and let myself fall apart. This was by design–my design. So often I grit my teeth and push my way through when life gets hard, despite the fact that everything in me wants to fall apart. My therapist says I cover a lot up with humor. (I’m pretty funny.) Anyway, after blogging yesterday about welcoming my emotions, I figured it was time to let my defenses down and talk about how fucking overwhelmed I’ve felt lately. To be clear, by “lately” I mean the last twenty-five years.

Give or take.

I guess you could say our talk went well. I mean, I cried. My therapist says it’s always good anytime you empty out “the poison pot.” Plus, my therapist said today was THE WORST she’s seen me since our first meeting over four-and-a-half years ago. I know that sounds like a bad thing, but my therapist actually seemed delighted about it. Maybe delighted is too strong a word. What I mean is that she really believes that things are darkest before the dawn, so the fact that I’ve hit my emotional rock bottom makes her think that things are about to start improving for me. Talk about optimism. Like that kid who gets excited when he sees a roomful of shit. Jumping up and down in the manure, he says, “There’s GOTTA BE a pony in here somewhere!”

When my therapist saw that I wasn’t on board with her positive outlook for my life, she said, “You can tell me to go fuck off if you want to.” This is a thing with her. Like, she gets excited when clients tell her to go screw herself. I guess because it means they’ve empowered themselves in some way. So I said, “Fuck you,” but she said it sounded wimpy. “Try again,” she said.

I sat up on the couch. “FUCK YOU!”

“Okay, that’s better,” she said.

Leaving therapy, I still felt less than optimistic. “It’s okay if you don’t believe things will get better,” my therapist said. “I believe it enough for the both of us.” So that’s something, a sliver of hope between two people.

Ugh, so many emotions.

Lately I’ve been reading a book called It Didn’t Start with You: How Inherited Family Trauma Shapes Who We Are and How to End the Cycle by Mark Wolynn. Honestly, it’s one of the most profound and helpful self-help/psychology books I’ve ever read, and I’ve read a few (hundred) of them. The basic idea is that often our emotional and even physical problems begin long before we’re born. Said another way, our problems, rather than simply belonging to us as individuals, more rightly belong to us as families. For example, for a long time I’ve had a hangup around money. Well, my grandpa on one side went through the Depression. My grandmother on the other side had a father who wouldn’t give her a quarter (a quarter!) for a library card (but he WOULD bail her alcoholic brother out of jail). My parents essentially lost everything twice, once in a fire, once when my dad went to prison. So scarcity is a pattern of thinking that’s–um–pervasive in my family.

The book says that we often adopt not-so-helpful beliefs and even physical illnesses as a way of bonding with our family members, or in an effort to take their pain away. However, when we do this, we get confused about “what belongs to whom.” So one of the exercises the author suggests is to make a family tree of trauma, a list of family members with notes about who died, who lied, who cheated, who mistreated, who blamed, who felt shamed, etc. My parents have been gracious enough to help me do this. Last week my mom and I discussed her side of the family, and tonight my dad and I discussed his. And whereas both conversations were truly helpful, they were also A LOT. Not that I imagine our family is all that different from anyone else’s, but suffice it to say there’s no small amount of grief, disappointment, fear, and sadness in my family tree.

Personally, I think this is why–in addition to my screwing up my knee–this last week and this afternoon have been so challenging. That is, I’ve given myself permission to feel the weight of my family history in an effort to not only honor my lineage but also put some of our traumas to rest. This is not fun; I don’t recommend it. But seriously, I do, since I don’t believe we’re meant to carry our pain indefinitely. At some point, it’s gotta come up, and SOMEONE’S gotta feel whatever it is. (Might as well be you.) In my case, if it takes an injured leg, a confrontational therapist, and some tough conversations for that to happen, then so be it. As one of my friend says, “Your feelings won’t kill you.” But as I’ve felt lighter this evening than I have in a long time, they might just set you free.