Conceal, Don't Feel

I have been debating about this particular post for over a week now because I didn't want people to know my "weakness," but here it is. I surprised myself with writing and publishing this one, so I hope you like it, can relate, or at least mildly understand where I am going with this one......

So, I was driving to work last week and was listening to music on my phone when a new song came on. It was the song "Let it Go" from the movie "Frozen." I took the kids to see it the weekend before and we all loved it so much that I bought the soundtrack. I had heard the song a few times before this, but for some reason when I heard it this time it made me start crying. I couldn't figure it out. Why was I crying over a darn Disney song? Then I realized that as crazy as it sounds, I related to the song. She was singing my song. The girl singing it has concealed her "powers" for years and finally people saw her powers and her world around her fell apart. By no stretch of the imagination do I have powers to control ice and freeze things, but I do feel like I am her at times. Read the first verse:

 

The snow glows white on the mountain tonight
Not a footprint to be seen
A kingdom of isolation, and it looks like I'm the Queen
The wind is howling like this swirling storm inside
Couldn't keep it in; Heaven knows I tried

Don't let them in, don't let them see
Be the good girl you always have to be
Conceal, don't feel, don't let them know
Well now they know

I feel like I am that girl. I am concealing myself. Concealing how I feel, not showing people the real storm inside, always telling them I am okay when I'm not. I am always being the "good girl" everyone wants me to be: the loving, patient, faithful, waiting wife; the parent filling in the role of both mom and dad; the caring teacher; the sympathetic, caring friend. I am doing all of these things and on the outside (to the untrained eye) I am great. On the inside, however, I feel like I have a storm brewing and it is only a matter of time before it shows and my world falls apart too.

Don't let them in, don't let them see. Conceal, don't feel. That is the only way I know how to deal with it all. It is how I was taught, the way I have always done it. The movie, however, made a great point (spoiler alert). When she finally "let it go" she ended up isolating herself from everyone, including her sister who loved her. By the end of the movie she learned that concealing it wasn't the way to control it, opening your heart, loving, accepting yourself and accepting the love of those around you is the way to control the "storm." I think this is why I love this movie so much. It isn't often when a Disney movie can really teach me something. Most of the ones I grew up on were the generic fairy tales we have all heard a hundred times, where "Frozen" is a story I had never heard before with a moral that actually taught this teacher a thing or two. I know that I am always able to learn, we never stop learning, but it is the fact that I learned something in this most unlikely of places that really shocks me.

I am taking this lesson to heart. I am starting to open up. I am trying not to conceal myself from everyone. Does this mean that I am going to walk up to someone I don't know and tell them all that is going on and all that I feel? Ummmm, no. It does mean that I am starting to open up to those that are still left in my life that I know care. I am starting to talk to them about the storms, allowing them to talk me down or help me up. I am realizing that accepting the love from people around me is the only way I am going to make it through this deployment without being taken out by it. By letting people see the real me, what is really going on, it helps to teach me to manage it better and not waste the energy and pain trying to hide it.