I heard something the other day about bricks as they specifically apply to walls. The comment was made about the theoretical brick walls we all erect in our souls in order to protect us from pain, hurt, sorrow, disappointment, and just plain icky-ness in life. But the way the comment was made struck me like, well, a brick wall.
“Walls keep our hurts inside,” was the comment.
Inside? No. That’s not how it works. We keep those things outside. But the thought wouldn’t leave my brain and soon my epiphany of the day finally occurred.
I began to watch, listen and learn from conversations around me. People often times harbor deep, horrible, life-altering pain inside their souls. But to face those hurts is unimaginable and even more painful than the original cause of said pain. So instead of keeping future, unknown hurts out, people are keeping them in, nestled safely behind a strong brick wall, not easily torn down. No blowhard, big bad wolves will get to these walls.
I began to think about what my internal hurts and sorrows and disappointments look like, but when I tried to put a name to them, I found discomfort. A lot of discomfort. This was definitely not my happy place.
I faced them, however, with not a little trepidation, and tried to list the biggies:
A. Rejection: he didn’t fight for me and I was left alone and empty.
B. Loneliness: I miss him, dammit!
C. Regret: What if….? Why did I….? Why didn’t I…..?
D. Anger: how dare he?
E. Self loathing: I’m a mess…who would want me? I’m fat, ugly, my life is a disaster, I’m in debt, and my house is one mess away from being an episode of “Hoarders.”
I mean seriously….those are just the biggies! I didn’t even touch on the little ones.
I came to the conclusion that no one is exempt from the brick wall of avoidance. We all do it. #thestruggleisreal makes a ton more sense to me when filtered through this scope.
I have heard many things about divorce recovery: “It takes 5 years to recover from a divorce” and “it takes half the time you were together to recover from a divorce.” I am 2.5 years post divorce. So in the instance of the first statement, I am halfway there. In the second timetable, I’ve got hell of a long way to go. Half of 18 years is 9. Not to mention the 2 we were together before marriage.
My point is this: I think that until I begin tearing my brick wall down from the inside, brick by brick, I will be, in essence, trapped by my own pain.
I can’t do that. No more. I want to move forward and to heal. I have healed a lot, but this epiphany seems to suggest the next phase in my healing process will take some heavy lifting on my part.
She’s a brick house, indeed. She’s got lots of bricks to repurpose into a new house.
