Bleeding.

“It’s funny how we will properly nurse a physical injury or wound that requires healing. An emotional one, though, when there is no physical manifestation, or we are able to ignore the impact we could see if we allowed ourselves to… We keep ripping it open, we beat it ceaselessly, we neglect it until it festers. If only our hearts – our figurative hearts – gushed blood and got infected and showed the threat their hurts are to our holistic health. Maybe then we would take better care of them all along.”

I wrote this in an email shortly after I woke up this morning (hence the really poor syntax), and I know it’s not an original concept. I’m sure I’ve read it or heard it at least once before. But today was the first time I remember really thinking it and feeling it and acknowledging the ways I neglect, and even actively abuse, my emotional self. I would not sit watching as blood streamed from my leg. I would not say, “I’ll take care of it later” if I broke my arm. I would not walk face-first into the same brick wall every single day. Why do I do the emotional equivalents?

Habit. Not knowing alternatives. A perverse kind of comfort in what is known. Take your pick. Add your own.

I have been flirting with emotional health for a little while now. Leading it on a bit at times. Not returning its phone calls and then knocking on its door in the middle of the night. I think I’ve played games for long enough. I’m ready to make a commitment. I know we’ve got a lot of work to do, but I’ve got nothin’ but time.