I remember when Brian was off in another country, he used to talk about how he put his feelings, his thoughts of home, all the emotional stuff he couldn�t deal with, the love and pain of daily living, inside of boxes. It was too much for him to deal with and stay vigilant and alive. Occasionally when we were talking, he would let them come out for air and sunlight, but they weren�t allowed to stay out very long. I don�t know if this was a habit he developed as a soldier or something he developed after his wife and daughter died many years ago, but now it�s a part of him�
I never really understood how he did it, how he just shut down that whole part of him. For me, I found it easier to just experience the emotion in its entirety, let the savageness of my pain rip through my body, do its damage and then be on its way. If I tried to shelve my emotions, or box them up, they just seemed to grow. They never stayed in their box either, and I soon found them spilling out into my seemingly emotionally tidy world. Small infractions in my day to day life seemed to elicit abnormal emotional reactions. The simple act of driving brought frequent rage. The cliched commercials brought tears to my eyes. Simple conversations with supermarket checkers over what to have for dinner could elicit an emotional response. Though I thought I�d put them in the box, they were really just floating under the surface of my skin. I found this method unsuccessful.
I feel a little differently now. I�m beginning to see the merits of this method of emotional containment. There are some emotions that will just never have satisfaction. Experiencing them in their fullest brings no relief. But the passage of time dims their vigor and makes it easier to contain them. I�m finding you can actually kill certain emotions and bury their bodies in the desert. Eventually, you just simply forget they exist.
This is what I�ve been doing with the part of me that loves a man. Because I�m finding it not to be emotionally profitable to love. Anyone. I�m just tired of the choices that people make, the lip-service they give to loving another human being. How love becomes just words that you tell another person, and not actual behavior that they can see and touch and feel. And I�m finding that if I tell the Janet Who Loves A Man to shut up, sometimes she listens. And the more I tell her, the more she listens. And I took her and put her in a box. And when she started lifting the lid, I tied it with twine. And when she started chewing at the twine, I wrapped it duct tape. And when she started scratching at the duct tape, I wrapped it in barbed wire. There�s still time to open the box and take her out, there�s still time for her to revive in the fresh air and sunlight. But if things don�t change soon, then I will have to take her out into the desert and bury her in the hot sand. When I return, I will burn the map of where she is located and forget she ever existed.
It can be done � the boxing up of emotions. And in time, we simply forget how to feel. At some point, you can turn back and take them out and walk with them, talk with them, live with them. But after a while, they just die. And they cannot be brought back to life. Please baby, don�t let her die.
