Sorting it all out (but perhaps still not making sense)

I admit it: I hesitated before hitting "publish" on my last post.

What if they all think I'm nuts?
What if they read it and are like: Awww, poor thing.
Or worse, what if they read it and think: "Oh shit. She's fucked up." (Or, for those of you who don't even think with the f-word: "Oh my, she needs help.")

I even texted Hubby: "Just posted. Hope I don't scare you into leaving me for someone simpler."

It's a good thing I posted.
The responses were completely the opposite.

Hubby? He laughed. Laughed. When I asked him what he thought, he shrugged: "Nothing. I know all that about you. And, most of the time, I love that about you."

And you all? Your comments were therapy. Anti-depressants. Magic. I don't think I have ever fully understood the power of a comment until this post. Those of you who "know" me, those of you who I consider my Blog Peeps...you all came out in full force. And then there were those of you who have never commented before, who I don't even know, and you wrote heart-felt, honest, revealing comments. Nuggets...little nuggets of wisdom is what you all threw at me...most of you empathizing, commiserating, admitting that you, too, feel that way sometimes. (So I guess it must be pretty normal to be abnormal?)

Your comments made me realize something that perhaps was incredibly obvious: I needed to just allow myself to be out of sorts. I needed to stop trying to figure out why it was happening, when it was going to end, and what I was doing "wrong." I needed to Just Be. Surrender. Surrendering: such a recurring theme in my life, my head, my posts (I went back to check...I've got 12 posts labeled "Surrender"!). When you mix "control freak" with "intense," you get a pretty potent cocktail. And often, I end up a little hung-over.

Your comments were like the morning-after aspirin and coffee:
HG: "Girl, if I were you, I would marinate in the funk you're in and ride it out."
Stacia: "I think funks are "normal,"(probably because I'm a funk-haver, too). I just have to let it run its course, like the flu. And maybe that's OK?"
Lindsey: "I try to remember, in the low points, that the highs will come back..."
LouBoo: "...the point being that I needed to not panic about my out of sortness as it would pass..."
Kelly: "Believe in yourself, ride out this funk, and know you are not alone."
Maria: "...sometimes, you got to simmer in it a little, so that it propels you out of it..."

Let it go. Ride it out. Surrender. Just Be.

It was so relieving to know that I was not alone in this. It was so relieving to know, especially, that I was understood...that there were others out there who feel "this"...whatever "this" is...and that it is, in fact, not a bad thing, not something to fight or hide, but something to embrace, something that makes us who we are, something magical:

KiKi: "Madness, envy, funk...the marks of a true artist. There is no medium, no mediocrity, because you feel so deeply--and that is a gift."
Inannasstar: "I too have really high highs and really low lows and don't do medium. My response? It's part of my charm."
Gilcelia: "I'd rather be chaotic and intense than simple and boring. I'll take complicated over comforming anyday."
Kristen: "But I have to believe that those high highs that come with the low lows make it all worthwhile in the long run - and that maybe we get light and not just heat by trying so hard to get to the sun."

All of this made me wonder:
What happens if you can't get this stuff out? What happens if you don't have a blog or a friend or a spouse to turn to? What happens if you are walking around, as I was, with all of this inside, festering, ricocheting around in your head? The craziness that is, in reality, normal, and possibly almost always healthy...doesn't it inevitably turn into something bad? The wondering turns into worry. And then don't you shut it all off? Don't you just try to shove it all down, close it up, snap it all shut...those things you feel that make you very high or very low? Those intense, chaotic moments of insanity that make you, in the big picture, sane? Don't you end up telling yourself to just stop? Stop being the way you are, stop thinking the way you think, stop feeling the way you feel, because surely, definitely, it must not be normal, and most certainly can not be healthy...
And then, when you manage to find a way to make yourself go slightly numb to your own Self, don't you stop being You?

"...the only people for me are the mad ones..."