Soul Cleansing

Tonight it's raining. I love the smell of rain. The forecast called for a storm but lately the rain hasn't been hanging around long enough to really lash out. I think I need it, my soul is screaming for a good storm.

Thunderstorms or rain have always felt like a soul cleansing to me. Metaphorically washing away all the shit. Drama, pain, anger...the toxicity that fuels hate, it's all gone after a good soul cleansing rain. Kind of like a good heart and gut wrenching cry. Right now I need the rain, very badly.

This black cloud that has followed me, building and raging but never releasing, is far more than just self hatred for my slow weight loss, my disappointment for falling so low I can't even stand myself. In the past few days I've found numerous moments that I feel a couple tears staining my cheeks, but I can't just cry. I feel that everything inside me is so congested that it just can not find its way out, and it's slowly eating at me.

I attribute part of this to the way I was raised. My father was a very proud, stoic man. Never one to show or stand for any kind of emotion or sensitivity I was taught from the time I was in diapers and could understand what was going on that big girls don't cry. We haul up our big girl panties and keep on going. My parents split when I was six, finalized the divorce when I was seven, after eight more years living with my hypersensitive mother I still hadn't gotten over the big girl complex. It drove me to cut, drink, smoke, even partake in a few "circles". It also fueled a very volatile temper.

I control tears, I don't control anger. I've been known to scream, punch and kick walls and doors, and throw shit around. Never at the person, just in their general vicinity. Only once have I ever gotten physical with someone, and that's because he made a racial slur against Mexicans...I happen to have Mexican blood and I didn't take to that too well. Before he knew it my hand was pressed against his throat holding him a foot off the floor against a locker, needless to say he never said anything like that around me again.

But I digress...it's been well over a year since I've had a good cry, a really really good cry. I've tried to make myself do it, knowing that when I do I'll feel that darkness ease, craving a bit of serenity from it. Nothing has worked, not movies, not writing, not even music. For those that know me well, they know that music affects, sometimes even controls my moods. If I'm angry I can usually release it by screaming out with a bit of Pantera, Melissa Etheridge, Three Days Grace, Godsmack....whatever fits the anger crying out for release in me.

At this time though, what I feel I need is a good gut wrenching, soul cleansing sob. I just don't know how to make it happen. I'm worried that I'm going to fall apart in the wrong place, at the wrong time, like when I drop my son off for his first day of Kindergarten. I'd started welling up already when we got to take a peek at his classroom. It's all going too fast, way too fast, I'm so not ready for this.

The wind's still whipping outside but the rain has stopped. I guess the we caught the storm's edge and I won't be getting that soul cleansing rain that I need so badly. Oh well, maybe next time.