When I went through my divorce I read a book called Breaking and Mending: Divorce and God's Grace. It is a great book and I recommend it for both those going through a divorce and those going through a big break-up. This book was a big part of my recovery which later left me open to meet and eventually marry the man of my dreams.
One of the concepts I loved in this book was the "beach ball moment." Mary Lou Redding explains it in these terms (I'm paraphrasing) if you try to hold a beach ball under water it will work for a while but eventually it will pop back up when you aren't expecting it. She goes on to say this can happen with emotions too. If you keep them in and you keep them in they will eventually pop out when you don't expect them. An example of this is you're in the grocery store and something rings up wrong and instead of calmly explaining that it was marked differently you fly off the handle at the poor clerk. You aren't really mad at the clerk you are taking out other feelings that you haven't dealt with out on her.
I had a beach ball moment last night at work. We have a council meeting in the evening once a month and at the close of the meeting we do a closing prayer circle. I was doing good I'd talked about J being deployed earlier in the night no problems. But for some reason when I went to bring him up at the prayer time the tears came. And I'm not a pretty crier because my nose starts to go and I get sniffly. Then following the prayer I got lots of hugs and words of wisdom. One of which was tears are a necessary part of the process. So true. But I know it is because I was tired and it is still so new. I know we will survive and I hope grow from this experience but it is tough. I miss him horribly. Even our dogs miss them horribly.
And I know there will be other beach ball moments before it is all over.
So what are your beach ball moments?
Posts
3 comments:
Sorry that you are seperated from your husband. That is sure a tough situation.
I remember years and years ago when my three boys were young I was going through a tough time too. Lots of reasons I don't need to get into but I was so excited that I had put bikes on layaway at our local department store to give them Easter morning. I had even paid extra to have them all assembled when I picked them up. The only bright spot in my life was thinking about seeing the boys get those bikes! When I went to get them the day before the store couldn't find them and when they did, of course, they were assembled. I just started SOBBING right in the department store. I mean huge, racking sobs!! The poor teenage clerk was horrified and people were rushing around me to see if I was OK. It was a fairly minor issue but it was just the final straw I guess. How mortifying....
I couldn't go back into that store without feeling embarrassment and was secretly relieved when it closed years later.
Oops! I mean they were NOT assembled. Now the story makes more sense ....
Hey Megan- Good post! Sorry that J is deployed. That's gotta be hard. I had a beach ball moment when I went to see my MD for a regular visit back when I was in grad school- he simply asked how I was and I immediately broke down! It came out of nowhere! Apparently I was stressed and keeping it bottled in...hmmm, taught me to deal with my emotions head-on!! Hang in there!
Post a Comment