It's not often that I do this. I reserve my blog for interesting things that I am doing, thinking about, and experiencing. I like to think that it makes my blog a little different from most. The kind of blog that people would want to visit because I have interesting things to say. If nothing else for answers to their CVS questions, or for looking for help on their next DIY music or fetish item.

So I try to "check my emotions at the door" as it were. Generally, the only two emotions that I let out on my blog are anger and my love for shell. The last thing I want is for this blog to degenerate to a LiveJournal of bad angst poetry, goofy little quizzes and personal politics.

However, this being said, I have been going through a particularly rough patch of emotions. It all started around Aug 27th. You might note that my posts since around that time have been rather sparse. Again, this is due to my emotional state. It's hard to write good entries when your mind is otherwise occupied.

So this entry is going to be long, and it's going to talk about my emotional state, but hopefully it will be a little different. I'll be talking about how I coped with my emotions, how they affected me, and what I did, and what I am doing to overcome them.

Some non back story

One of the biggest beefs I have about blogs (community and otherwise) is that they are frequently used as a clothesline for airing out dirty laundry. Nothing says lame like airing out ones grievances to the world in a starkly public forum. It's even less classy then airing out ones twisted sexual perversions ;-).

So the details of what happened, how it happened and why it happened are not forthcoming. Either you know the details, and you know the state I am in, or you don't. Feel free to ask about them, I'll let you in on as many details as I feel comfortable.

But to give you some context as to what's happened, Shell and I almost lost some close friends. This certainly hasn't been the first time its happened, but we seem to be getting better at it. There is less drama, less anger and less bitterness. My thought is that friendships just ebb and flow, and sometimes the ebb gets so low that things fall away.

Coping Mechanisms

Throughout this whole experience I've been listening to a set of 9 tracks, mostly trip-hop and Drum & Bass, with a bad 80's tune thrown in to boot. A name for this mix popped into my head one day, titled "Coping Mechanism".

Music has always been an excellent method to shift and change my mood. I've always been deeply affected by it. When I am going through an emotional period, I find it is important to choose music that adequately expresses what I am feeling, and at the same time also leaves room open for interpretation to my particular situation, and also leaves the door open for growth, change and 'the light at the end of the tunnel'. When I was younger, I would wallow in the mud of my own depression. Therein lies the road to bad angst poetry.

Another saving grace so far has been art. I've been filling my sketchbook full of art that expresses how I am feeling, either abstractly, or symbolically. I feel that by exteriorizing these emotions in such a way allows me to get a firmer, more honest look at what I am feeling, and more importantly, allows me to act on these emotions. Whether it be talking about how I am feeling to the people relevant to the situation, or by simply deciding that I don't need those emotions anymore, and releasing them. Maybe in the future, I will scan them in, and post them to flickr.

Healing Machine

There is a tired old saw that goes like this: "When life hands you lemons, make lemonade!". It is probably one of the hardest things to hear, and certainly one of the hardest things to do when you are in the middle of an emotional funk. Who really wants to hear that you can turn the situation around when you are in the middle of grief? But really it is the only reasonable thing to do.

Making lemonade out of this whole situation has been hard. In order to do this, it required extreme honesty, self reflection, and communication. Common wisdom says that honesty and communication is what is required in any relationship, and it sounds so easy, but it isn't. First you have to be honest with yourself, and what you are really feeling. Next you have to be honest with your mate. Sometimes being honest with your mate means telling them things that they do not what to hear, and things you do not want to say. It also means that they have to be open enough to actually listen to what is going on, and you just have to accept their reaction as it is, for what it is. Finally, it means being able to appropriately communicate with enough tact and politeness that they can actually listen to what you have to say. That is not to say that you need to crouch everything in analogies or diplomat-speak, but instead to squirrel the other person away in a bomb shelter, before setting up the bomb.

And that is how Shell and I got through one of the roughest spots of our marriage. We were both honest and open with each other. Sometimes brutally so. Sometimes we had to say things that the other did not want to hear. Sometimes we had to say things that we did not want to say to each other. But we did so, and in doing so, we each listened to the other and came out stronger and closer then ever before. But it was not easy. It was not fun, but as a result our relationship grew stronger.

And that is what it is all about.