I’m Becoming One of THOSE People!

I’m becoming the kind of person I used to warn myself about. Optimistic and joyful adults who flutter about the room with childlike glee used to scare the crap out of me. With slight annoyance and a lot of internal head-scratching, I wondered what they were so happy about. I found their enthusiasm for life obnoxiously nauseating at worst and suspicious at best.

But…as I plunge deeper into my healing journey, I’m asking myself how I cannot feel this way. Lately, smiles light my face from the heart up, and I’ve broken out in dance multiple times. Yes, dance. If you’re reading this and don’t know me, I can tell you that not that long ago, I would’ve been more likely to voluntarily shave off my eyebrows with a dull butter knife than break out in dance. Morose and withdrawn for decades, I’m suddenly brimming with unfettered joy. I’m becoming the kind of person who once froze me in baffled shock. 

Despite being older than I’ve ever been, I somehow feel the youngest I’ve ever felt. As I heal, I’m experiencing an inverse aging phenomenon. It’s akin to falling in love. You know…that warm, glowing feeling, gooey as a freshly baked cinnamon roll, nearly soggy with icing? Yep, that’s me. Happy. Sappy. Saccharine. So uncharacteristically not “me” that I, at times, wonder if I’ve been body snatched. Yet…I know that this is me. This is me in the state of Self. This is me when I’m not stuck in constant survival mode. No longer confined to a perpetual prison of my go-to fear responses, I’m truly experiencing the present for the first time in decades, if not forever. It feels like the transition from black-and-white to color in “The Wizard of Oz.”

I wonder how I could have not smelled the blooming flowers or heard the chorus of birds in the past, yet somehow, I’ve never experienced life this way before. (If I’m being honest, I did hear some of the birds, and I used to swear at them for making noise. Who gets mad at birds?) Anyway, it feels like all my favorite songs have been merged into one magical masterpiece, and someone has cranked up the volume. It feels like an orgasm of the soul. I realize that my life has played out for over 40 years, not quite void of, but severely lacking vibrancy. 

It’s only fair, as we heal and begin to see life through the lens of hope, and dare I say happiness, that we question if this is what we’ve been missing out on?

Have people who have never lived within the CPTSD prison experienced this their whole lives? Is it this intense, or is it just another day for them? As these questions dance through our minds, we inevitably arrive at the question: why? What did we do to have this stolen from us all these years? The answer, of course, is nothing. That, however, doesn’t make it hurt any less or shake any sense into it. It’s not fair, and it’s infuriating. It’s easy to get stuck in this feeling, especially now that I can truly feel each angle and texture of my experiences. It’s okay to get angry, but we owe it to ourselves not to stay in a place of hopeless rage. We’ve been robbed of enough, so we must resist the temptation to rob ourselves. 

How can we let go of our grip on anger and embrace what we have left of this journey? I think, just like with so many other things in our lives, we (being the resourceful survivors that we are) find or create something that works for us. I’ve decided that I’m going to push through this hangup about missing out by telling myself that most people don’t experience this degree of appreciation for life’s beauty. I’ve convinced myself that the decades trapped in the lonely halls of darkness illuminate the light at the end of the hall.

The contrast between life’s lowest depths exaggerates and magnifies life’s greatest heights. Once afraid of feeling, I now feel everything, good and bad, so deeply that my body seems to hum with emotion. It’s a superpower of sorts. I don’t wear a cape, but I wear a cocky smile knowing I’ve made it through hell and I’m still standing.

A now-gone, but never-forgotten loved one, who also lived a life filled with heartache and challenges, lived by the motto: “Don’t worry, it will get worse.” The first time she laid this line on me, I laughed for about two seconds before it dawned on me that it was the truest thing I’d ever heard. I think I surprised her when I said: “You’re right. That’s the best advice I’ve ever gotten.”

You’ve gotta just keep going, and when things are good, enjoy them. Give yourself permission to marinate in happiness and savor every last succulent drop of unquantifiable bliss. None of us has a crystal ball, so there’s no point in trying to forecast the future. (If you just read that and thought, “That’s easier said than done,” trust me, a part of me intensely agrees.) That said, we can only control and live where we are right now. I heard another saying once that resonated with me: if you have one foot in the past and one foot in the future, you’re taking a leak on the present. Good point, right?

Things haven’t been easy for many of us, and sometimes it feels like we’ve survived a series of painful tests only to be rewarded with more pain.

Again, it really is not fair. But, like most things, there is another way to look at it. I recently discovered musician Kate Wolf, and the lines to her song “Unfinished Life” ring through my soul like a siren calling me home. Wolf wrote: 

“I’ve crossed so many rivers

In search of crystal fountains

I’ve found the truest paths

Always lead through mountains.”

Here’s the thing about climbing mountains to get to the other side…it brings us to a place where we see things clearly and from a place of advantage. We see the full scope of humanity. We feel the full scope of life’s experiences. I don’t know, maybe I’m full of crap, but it’s as good a justification as any. I do know one thing, though. The traumas that bring us to this page, where we seek answers, companionship, and hope, have changed us. They may have removed the power from our hands temporarily.

But…we survived. We have control over where we go from here.

Sometimes it takes Herculean effort to just enjoy the moment, but we can do it. How do I know? Well, mostly because we’ve already been to hell and back. So…if you’re finally able to hear the song and it makes you happy, it’s okay to dance! If you feel like you’re becoming “one of those people, look in the mirror and welcome yourself to the world. Maybe this whole thing is a bit like falling in love…with yourself and with life for the first time.

Photo Credit: Unsplash

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