We push and pull and I fall down sometimes

It is the dilemma of writing a public blog that sometimes the thing I want to write about is the thing I need to be careful writing about, either to protect someone's privacy or even to protect my own to a certain extent.  Which raises the obvious question of, "why not just write about it privately?"

And sometimes I do.  I have a journal that I scribble in, often when I'm trying to work out a thought or a feeling, or when I just want to think by engaging in the physical act of taking pen to paper. But I feel like I write differently, and more carefully, when I write for an audience, so usually when I feel compelled to write about something, and write it well, I do it here.  After nine and a half years, it's a hard habit to break.

Which brings me to my current predicament.

My heart hurts today.  That's all I'll say, because the details are tangential to the point of this post.

Over the weekend, I was voice-messaging with my high school friend Kristin, who is one of my favorite people.  She lives in Switzerland, and I haven't seen her in a million years, but we're in pretty regular communication nonetheless. Our favorite way to keep in touch is by Facebook's messenger system, which allows you to send recorded voice messages.  The wrinkle is that each recording can be no more than one minute long, so rather than type, we talk by sending a series of digital voice messages, however many it takes to form the sentences and paragraphs we mean to convey.  It actually isn't as cumbersome as it sounds, plus I don't have a problem hearing my own voice, probably from years of writing briefs and legal correspondence via dictation when I was in private practice.

Anyway. I was explaining my situation to Kristin, who, in addition to being a wonderful and wise friend, is also a therapist, so she's a great listener and gives good advice.  And I didn't really need advice so much as validation of my own sense of what I already knew I needed to do, which Kristin was happy to provide.

But one of the things that really struck me was when she told me that she could hear the pain in my voice, and that even though it sucks to be hurting, it's healthy that I'm allowing myself to feel and express the pain  - "you're in it," was how she described it - rather than bottle it up or repress it.  A couple of other people have made the same observation.

Which, in a way, I find comforting.  Because as much as I'm feeling heartsick today - some of it exacerbated by a lack of sleep plus the exhaustion that comes from crying - I also know that feeling like this means that I was willing to put myself out there, that I was willing to risk being hurt by allowing myself to be emotionally open and honest.  It's how I've said I want to live my life, so at least I'm practicing what I preach.

There's something to be said for that.