I've been struggling with a few things and just read an article about a teen girl who was murdered by her boyfriend, rather ex boyfriend. Granted, my things are not romance relationship related, but it's emotions nonetheless. I am always trying to find lessons and things to teach my girls. As you parents know, you can't hold their hand through life. And I personally feel it's better to prepare them for adapting to situations, rather than controlling a situation.
Hopefully some of you can share some experiences or observations, or both. Off the top of my head, I know Troy and Alan and Jeremy and Shawn and Wayne to name a few who have dealt with emotions.
Some say they put their faith in God, some say they bottled it up/blocked it out, and some will have different avenues of handling all different sort of emotions.
I'll try to start it off. Prior to 2008, I wasn't big on being emotional. The closest I came to shedding a tear would have been when Dale Earnhardt died. No, I never met him or spoke to him, but when I seen how many people were hurt by his loss ... I wished over and over that it would have been me and not him that was gone. After all, no news channel would care if I died. Seven years later, I lost my mother. Christ, even typing those words hurts.
The day she died, 6:37am Wednesday while I was driving on highway 172 just approaching the Webster Ave overpass ... tears fell by the buckets down my cheeks. I pulled into work, a job, a career I started just three months earlier and I had to bury these tears so I could do my job. I sat down, grabbed my laptop bag and I couldn't do it - I couldn't work, I couldn't block this out for 5 seconds let alone 10 hrs. I leaned over in my chair and mumbled "my mom died and ... I" and I started bawling. My manager told me to follow him into our bosses office and asked me what was wrong. Here I was, 27 year old man, in front of two grown men whom I respected greatly and no one outside of my parents had ever seen me shed a tear and I couldn't stop the waterworks no matter how hard I tried.
I've had some troubles coping with her loss. I have avoided Sturgeon Bay with the underlining motivation that I'm not seeing mom simply because I haven't went to Sturgeon Bay. Probably silly, but it worked for awhile, until last September when I had to go back for my godson's funeral and then again a few weeks ago for Grandpa's.
What I've found that helps, I guess that's a misnomer, nothing helps ... what I've found that makes it less difficult is when I am missing them to the point of tears, I grab my laptop and start writing them or grab a notebook.
Emotional anger is something completely different. I have a thin temper at times, mainly when it comes to my girls. Other times I have it in check, but it needs to be released. Usually, I go for a long bike ride, or work out, or something that's physically demanding.
You have anything to share?