On Winter Solstice Eve (20th December) I had a meltdown.
It had rained all morning, a deluge, heavy enough to swamp the driveway and footpath in front of our cottage. The gutters overflowed and cascaded a wall of water in front of my eyes as I peered out through the front window, trying to pierce the gloom.
A task I had been putting off, for months really, came back to haunt my vision. I needed to cut a drainage gutter across the driveway to divert the stormwater away from the front yard, and now, yet again, my procrastination was laid bare.
Not to Self: Don’t put off yard/cottage maintenance stuff, because you might have to do it in a deluge.
I decided to wait until the rain at least eased off, and turned away to do other things, when I suddenly started crying, for no apparent (at that moment) reason. Not the sort of crying where your eyes leak a little, no these were deep sobs that felt as though they might crack my ribs on their way out of my body.
I’ve had quite a few crying jags over the past year, (who among us hasn’t?) but this one laid me low.
Incoherent words of grief and rage spewed forth from my mouth and mingled with my tears, and I couldn’t stop.
I quite literally couldn’t stop. Every time I drew a breath in more sobs and roars of pain came back out.
I dragged myself into the bathroom, (the only room in the house without windows) hoping the darkness would help me find some anchor to stem the tide.
Didn’t work. I was going to have to ride this tsunami to its end.
Letting go, is never an easy thing to do for us humans. We’re conditioned from cradle to grave, to strive for control, of everything, over everything. Our bodies, our families/friends, our environment, and we equate taking action, any action, with control. Needless to say, we don’t succeed all that often. A conclusion that is almost always obscured by all that action-ing we’re so busy doing.
Anyway, I stopped actioning and returned to the window and the pouring rain, and fully released the wave.
Nothing lasts forever, (although it was beginning to feel like it) not even rib-cracking emotional meltdowns, and at last I could draw a breath and release it without sobbing.
And then, as though someone turned off a tap, the heavy rain stopped … and it started to snow. Big fat splats of snow that very quickly covered the draining stormwater in a scum of ice, then layers of snow.
Those who know me know that snow is my thing … it lasted through Winter Solstice day, through Christmas and Boxing Day, and only finished melting the day before yesterday.
It was the most perfect timing of any snowfall, ever.
My snow, my footsteps, my farewell to 2020
When waters flow, there is need of an outlet.
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Otherwise there will be ‘splosions … which never end well. 🙂
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The grief is overwhelming sometimes. These are exraordinarily difficult times to navigate. Your footsteps in thesnow photo is very evocative.
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I was lining up the long shot up the road when I took it, but seeing it on my computer as I was putting the post together, I realised where the focus really was. 🙂
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Goodbye, 2020!
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It shall now become just a part of history. 🙂
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Not bad timing for a snowfall on your patch. x
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Heh, heh, heh, not bad timing at all. 🙂
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Happy New Year! You’re not responsible for everything.
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I needed one giant emotional release to finish the year with … I felt much more grounded/back inside my skin, afterwards. 🙂
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Glad you could, if you needed it.
I can’t allow it – the adrenaline aftereffects kill me for days.
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‘…I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. Time to NOT die. …’
A drainage gutter is every bit as remarkable as a C-beam or attacks ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. Keep on keeping on, if for no other reason than that it seems to annoy the hell out of so many strangers and strange institutions, such as gubbermunts.
As you know, crying – even in the rain – is something that we chaps just never do. [insert winky-eye emoticon].
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Heh, of course you don’t. 🙂 … thank you for your kind words, and completely appropriate movie reference. 😀
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That was a very special and wonderful moment… and timely too…
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Yeah, special moments aren’t always unicorns and lollypops, and what counts is that we see these ones just as wonderful. 🙂 … in their own rib-cracking and crying-induced-headache kind of way. 🙂
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You probably needed to let some of it out…
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Very liberating. 🙂
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I think I am over due for a good primal scream!
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Let ‘er rip! 😀
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Those moments hit hard and completely out of nowhere. All we can do is let ourselves feel, and be glad we can still feel.
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It was how blindsided I felt that had me gobsmacked. 🙂 … not one of my favourite sensations.
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Lovely snowfall!
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And impeccable timing. 🙂
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“actioning” – love it.
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Heh, it seemed to fit the moment. 😀
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-hugs- sometimes the universe does give a shit. I hope you made lots of snow angels. 🙂
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Thanks, Meeks 😀 … all that rain just before made it a bit like a giant slushie, but it sure did look pretty. 😀
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I’ll be honest, I’m not a fan of slushies or snow, but I am really glad that YOU got some. Wish I could send you a care package full of snow every month, but we just don’t get the cold stuff. Take care and be kind to yourself. -hugs-
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Sending hugs and New Year magic to blow away the cobwebs and procrastinations. Onwards and upwards! xx
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To Infinity, and beyond! 😀
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A good kind of meltdown! You’ve reminded me to be brave.
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Sometimes the things we think are the furthest from ‘brave’ are exactly what brave really means. 🙂
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[…] never recorded a third set of numbers. That would’ve broken me long before my meltdown at Winter […]
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Every time it is coming up on rain, I tell myself I need to go tend to the animals–put the rabbits in the garage, put away the chickens, tarp up, etc. And every time it rains, I find myself out in the thick of the storm putting away the chickens and tarping up. But we get through it after all. Glad to be back here reading your work friend.
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Glad you’re back too. 🙂
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