heavy, yet healing.

a song to set the scene // lost time by javi lobe

“How are you feeling?” my brother asked.

Pausing, I checked in with myself.

“I’m doing okie,” I replied honestly. “It’s been a week.”

He nodded, understanding. “I feel like the family needs to disconnect with the world for a week,” he added.

I smiled.

He was so right. I couldn’t have agreed more.

It has truly been just one of those weeks.

And yet I’m here, despite it all.

Our story begins at brunch, on a road trip.

We had just paid our bill when all of a sudden, a man walked around the corner of the bar. White as a sheet, he stopped, staring, before falling like a tree.

WHAM.

He hits the ground.

Within seconds, everyone in the restaurant moved to his side. His wife, hysterical, came rushing over, calling his name.

Unconcious, he laid there.

Did I just witness someone have a heart attack? A seizure? Is this man okay?

As luck would have it, a nurse happened to be one of the few guests in the restaurant. Rushing to his side, she moved him onto his back.

His eyes soon fluttered open.

But his face.

I’ll never forget that face.

A single trail of blood gushed from his eye, and the nurse informed him that he had a pretty significant laceration across his cheek, which I saw.

Stricken, I continued to look at him nonetheless, only to see that his chin had also split.

I had never seen anything like it.

As everyone around me dialed 911, the nurse calmly told him that he had fallen down, but that he was alright.

Looking up at me, he spoke: “Is that why everyone is staring at me?”

Relief flooding through me, I smiled, and let out a sigh of relief. He was going to be okay.

All of a sudden, the frenzied wife looked up at me.

“Are you fu***** laughing? This is not funny. My husband is lying on the floor and you’re fu***** LAUGHING?!”

Mortified, I stammered. “No no, I would never, I… No, I wasn’t…”

“What the he** is wrong with you?” she cried.

Mouth agape, I froze, petrified.

“Everybody processes trauma differently,” the nurse calmly told her.

No. I mean yes, but no. I would never laugh at somebody in pain.

I was now in shock.

Tears started to prick at the corners of my eyes, and I looked to my gem.

“I need to get out of here. Now.”

Trapped, I felt a feeling I had never felt before in my body.

Like someone wringing out my insides like a wet towel, my lips started quivering and my breathing turned rapid.

Get me out of here. Now.

Driving back to where we had stayed the night, I heard attempted words of comfort from those around me, like dull noise.

“It wasn’t your fault. You didn’t do anything wrong. It wasn’t directed at you. The wife was traumatized, took it out on you. Wrong place, wrong time.”

All just dull noise.

Because these things I knew. But my body: my panic ridden body, was currently processing trauma. And what I needed was support. Love. Comfort. Touch.

Back at the house, I wept with my gem.

Body heaving, I bawled, feeling this scar forming inside of me.

What had I just seen? What had I just done? I had never felt so misunderstood. I could never laugh at someone in that situation.

So my gem held me as I sobbed into his shoulder.

Feel this. Your gem’s arms around you: supporting, loving, comforting, and touching you.

It was such a healing moment for me.

Unfortunately, my processing wasn’t done in what’s considered a “timely manner.”

To the rest of those around me, I had overstayed the amount of time it takes for someone to get over it or move on.

And now my grief, my own personal traumatic experience, felt… rushed.

Never mind what you just went through. We’ve been delayed, and now it’s because of you.

Sensing the impatience around me, I did what I could to lighten the mood, for the air of the others had shifted onto frustration.

I imagined them thinking: there she goes again, having this big moment, ruining it for the rest of us.

In a previous life (IE less than six months ago), I would’ve handled this very differently. I would’ve taken that judgement, that frustration from others, and amplified it within. Hating, blaming, and deeming myself the biggest dissapointment.

I struggle to articulate how this happened, but instead of doing just that, I turned towards the others instead, who were clearly not ok.

I didn’t know the circumstances of what brought them to feel bitter, but I could tell the weren’t doing ok and whether or not it was because of me, I nonetheless bravely faced them.

Still feeling the enormity of what I had just experienced, there somehow lied within me compassion and caring for how the others were feeling, and so I asked them: Are you ok?

How I was able to sit with the still fresh wound of what had happened at brunch and be there emotionally for others can only be described as growth.

And though heavy, I felt I was healing.

Then two days later, a construction worker cussed out my mom as I sat in the backseat.

Two days after that, I dealt with one of the worst behaved guests at work.

And in the same week, my sister and I were yelled at for riding our bikes on the road.

I listened to a fitting meditation in the midst of this somewhat hellish week. In it is quoted this:

We have little power to choose what happens, but we have complete power over how we respond.

Time has passed since these rather scarring events, and though not much time, I feel this pain within me alleviating.

How do you feel? I now ask myself.

Despite it all, I’m still here.

Heavy, yet healing.