It’s been awhile since I put the fart humor aside (pains me to even write such a sentence), and talked about something more real, but I think it’s time.
One of my good friends, Bill Flynn, is known for saying that doing emotional work is much more exhausting than physical work. I have found this to be true as well.
Today, I woke up at nine am, which gave me a solid nine hours of sleep. For some reason I’m a nine hour guy. It’s virtually impossible to do, of course, with a full-time job, this blog, the band, and a girlfriend. I can really only crank it out on Friday and Saturday nights.
That last sentence doesn’t read too well, now that I’m thinking about it. Screw it – not going to change. Accidental double entendres are kind of cool in my opinion.
So, I woke up and had two bratwursts for breakfast. I got excited last night at the grocery and had realized that I had all but forgotten bratwurst were a food. I cooked up two last night, and two this morning. That’s a lot of low quality meat within a twelve hour window.
Then, not surprisingly, I became tired again. And why shouldn’t I? I was up for a good three hours. I laid back in bed and started checking emails, and then trying to impress comedians I follow on Twitter.
I received an email that really angered me. I immediately wanted to lash out and punish this person (don’t worry friends and family, it wasn’t you), and then I realized, “Holy shit! I’m angry!”
Usually anger to me equals action. Since I’m so uncomfortable with my anger, I must act upon it, which usually means doing something hurtful to the person that I believe is making me angry. Obviously this is not always a good idea, and I most times I have enough sense not to pick up the phone and start screaming the c-word.
Obviously, I would have dialed someone first, as screaming the c-word into a dial tone is not very satisfying.
Instead of action, however, I decided to go within. I turned off my brain and went to the feeling. Tried to sit with it, which is difficult for me. Eventually I was transported back to other times I was angry, and eventually it turned into sadness. Actually deep sadness, which nearly brought me to tears. Thoughts of my ex-wife flooded me and a little kid voice screaming, “Why did you leave me?” as she walked away. Which I totally thought I was over by now. Awesome to realize I’m not. Ha.
I then promptly passed out.
I awoke three hours later with my dog and cat curled up on top of me. I started to feel shame about wasting the day, but you know what? I’m hoping my body knew what to do.
Can you imagine me as a father?
Excuse me, children. Daddy needs to go process anger and then fall asleep. Here’s a DVD. Stay away from the outlets.
I feel good now, because I did what I had never, until recently, taught myself to do – stay with the tough feelings, let my body do the work, and then go eat a bratwurst.