Sigh

My soul hurts today. I've been crying since Saturday and I've just finally been able to get myself together enough to go to work. I, like most people, have always dealt with the little voices of doubt and negativity in my head. But this weekend those voices became deafening, and their volume shattered the glass eggshell that covers my soul.

For basically my whole life, I've faced and triumphed over a lot of adversity. I never really let myself process a lot of those things, I just stuffed the memory down and kept it moving. But in so doing, the little negative voices moved in. When I was busy in my life, like when I was in school full time and working full time and dancing 6 days a week and still in competitions, I could basically block them out. But when things were calm and less busy, blocking them was not as easy. Somehow I managed to not be knocked down completely and thrown into a life-long chronic depression because of all of that, but I was lucky.

Right now, my life isn't as busy as it was a few years ago. I'm on summer break from grad school, work is okay, and I have a great drama-free home life with D and my family and friends. So in my quiet days, the negative talk has gotten so loud. And now I have more than enough time and opportunity to really think about the things I've gone through and examine the old bruises to my psyche. And let me tell you, they are many. They've healed over pretty well, but I got the proverbial beat-down harder than I thought. My self-confidence slipped out of my grasp over the years, slow enough that I didn't notice it until it was almost gone. When now, I look at myself and I see a broken glass with cracks in it that no one bothered to have fixed.

I finally explained it all to D, and he listened and he cried right along with me. Rather than be shaken by my fragility or scared off by my heaving sobs, he held me and told me that it's time for me to be healed. But before I can be repaired, I need to give myself a chance to hurt since I've never really done that before. So he told me to let myself feel the searing pain that I've managed to stuff so far down and cry it out. And it feels good to finally let it all out and stop pretending that I'm not affected. I hid all of that away from most men, because I was afraid they wouldn't know how to deal with it, but I'm lucky this time.

Sorry if this doesn't make sense to any of you, but just know that I'm hurting, but I'll be alright. The fun will be back soon!