This morning I’m sitting in the broken easy chair my mother bought me twenty or so years ago—stuck in a reclined position with the footrest up, but still the most comfortable seat in the house—wondering if I’ll be able to get up again. I overworked my tender low back this past week, and every other day it reminds me with debilitating pain. It’s a particularly bad time for motion-limiting pain because my oldest dog has a respiratory virus that’s probably contagious and my younger dog hasn’t been to the dog park since Thursday and she’s bored. She wants to play tuggies or chase and if she doesn’t get play she’ll try trouble: counter-surfing, stealing the tea towel, or appearing with an unidentifiable piece of plastic that has to be wrestled off her to prevent her eating it.
Ok, I admit that sounds funny, but actually I’m feeling pretty sorry for myself. When my sister was alive, I’d call her up for sympathy and she’d send healing energy to both my dog and me. She’d know that the worst pain in the house was my worry over my beloved dog.
When I get the sharp, stabbing pain of missing my sister or the thick, dull ache of feeling I’ll never laugh again the way I did with her, I try hard not to cry. It’s an instinct. I tell myself crying will give me a sinus headache (it always does); my eyes will swell up so much it’ll be obvious I was crying so I won’t be able to go do the errands I need to do; my poor, long-suffering husband will finally get tired of his emotionally overwrought poet-wife; and with all the good things in my life, I shouldn’t feel sorry for myself anyway.
Oof. That last one is straight out of my parents’ mouths. Stop feeling sorry for yourself is right up there with Don’t be a tattletale. I remember feeling both as a shock, as criticism for having feelings. It was as though, in seeking reassurance, I’d run into an invisible wall, and the only way through to my parents’ approval was to hide my feelings.
I don’t know if this approach was due to the time period, my parents’ backgrounds, the whole WASP thing, or simply the particular stresses of my parents’ lives. What I do know is that I’m not the only one with that idea echoing in my head. Several of my friends will reluctantly tell me about some difficulty in their lives, only to follow it immediately with, “But at least I have a house to go back to,” or “First world problems.”
I wish I didn’t have to say this, but here it is: you’re allowed to feel sorry for yourself. You’re allowed to have the full range of emotions. You’re allowed to ask for sympathy and reassurance and help. Recognizing your privilege is a good thing, but it won’t help the people suffering in war for you to beat yourself silent with the clumsy club of comparison.
When you’re grieving a loved one (no matter how much time has passed since the loss), when you’re trying to reforge your identity after a break-up, when you lose your job—go ahead and throw yourself a pity party! Having feelings, and showing them, is actually going to make things better, not worse. Any therapist will tell you it’s the repressed feelings that hurt you, that settle in your body and escape sideways at some unexpected time and place. When you feel your losses, you’re not “wallowing” or “indulging,” you’re just being human.
And if you don’t believe me, read this fierce poem by Kim Addonizio. “Some moments can’t be eased,” she writes, and as usual, a poem says everything better than most prose could.
Katie, this is all so true. Acknowledging our pain doesn't mean we're not also grateful for the good things that remain. Feeling the sorrow is necessary.
It weird. It feels very self-aware or existential (or in more current language, meta) to have feelings about yourself (or more precisely, to acknowledge them), whether it’s sorry, happy, proud, angry, whatever. We’re the narrator of our own life-book, and it’s good to be a kind and understanding one—the sort that lets the main character, us, breathe.
And speaking of breathing, I hope your dog gets/feels better soon!