Rules of Thumb

I’ve come to learn that I cannot drive or cook when I am emotional, which means I am destined to be a pedestrian with a penchant for take-out. 

Let me explain…

 

I am, always have been, a feeler.  For better or worse, my emotions are the driving force of me, and my heart trumps my head on many occasions.  Indeed, not only does my heart overrule my head, sometimes my heart is so convincing that my head gets swept up in the commotion.

I’ve already told of the St. Louis incident.  Well, this time it was a culinary catastrophe.  HomeBoy and I came home one evening last week, and I was preparing to cook.  I’d received a few phone-calls and emails from family members in need throughout the day, and it vexed me.  I have no problem giving, and I love to help (esp. people I love), but I felt so overwhelmed.  Maybe it was the fact that hands were coming from so many directions at once; maybe it’s because I felt confused.  I thought the last time I did this would be the last time I did this. I became frustrated and anxious and just a little paranoid.  Note to self: these are not the emotions to indulge when chopping onions.

 

Somewhere between wondering how I could help and recalling the wisdom of “teaching a man to fish”, my hand started bleeding.  I had chopped the corner of my thumb clean off.  The sounds that I let out – I did not know they were inside me.  The way that I wailed and cried, moaned and cursed, you would think I was at war and just lost a limb!  HomeBoy ran to my aid and saw me bleeding.  He went to get gauze and bandages and told me to put pressure on my thumb to stop the bleeding.  But I couldn’t stop the crying.  I cried for the pain in my thumb, but I mostly cried for the pain in my heart and head.  HomeBoy cleaned me up and tried to console, “I know, Baby.  I know it hurts.”

 

“Yes,” I thought, “You know that it hurts, but you don’t know how it hurts – or why.”

But HomeBoy didn’t know because I didn’t tell him.  I didn’t tell him because I still worry about burdening people with my cyclical thinking and neuroses – even the people who make it plain that they want to be there for me.  It’s been just over a week since bloody Wednesday, and I am so much better in so many ways.  My thumb is healing nicely, and my heart is much better.  I’m realizing that if I don’t release at least some of what is inside, it will find its own way out – through a rental car fender  or an unsuspecting appendage.