Baby toe

 

I am so filled with emotion these days.

Filled.

Overflowing.

Every single pore seems to be seeping something. Like, my guts want to explode outward. My heart and brain are working overtime and there is no room in my ever-softening body for another ounce of emotion. It is coming out all over the place.

I am brimming with joy. I am in the depths of despair. I am anxious about everything. I am absolutely boiling over with rage. Oh, the rage is real.

Anyway, three days ago, I stubbed my baby toe.

Like, SLAMMED that poor sucker into the extremely solid leg of our coffee table. 

HARD.

In a true feat of timing, I carried out this perfect exposition of awkwardness while ALL of the inhabitants of our household were in the same room. It hurt so bad I felt faint. I laughed—what else could I do? Hahaha, I’m all fine, nothing to see here—and carried on with less spectacular awkwardness.

That toe is so many beautiful colors right now. It’s probably cracked but I’m not heading out into germ-land to get it x-rayed just so that they can tell me that it is, indeed, cracked and… sorry, there’s nothing they can do for a cracked toe. I AM a physiotherapist, remember.

So yeah, the irony? I can walk all over the place in my bare feet with zero pain, but the minute I put on my brand-spanking new Peloton shoes to work that ever-softening body out on said very-expensive Peloton my baby toe shoots agony right up to my diaphragm, settling somewhere just behind my bladder (another peri-menopausal story altogether), bringing tears to my eyes and allowing a little more emotional leakage (thankfully, NOT other leakage).

My multi-coloured toe is taunting my tenuous stopper on my emotional Old-faithful.

(aside…Peloton folks, one can only do so many meditations—gotta keep up that streak—when one is sitting on a fault line.)

Anyhow. My toe will heal. But wow, that tiny stressor adds so much more to the pressure within.

I’m sure I’m not alone. We’re all dealing with a gazillion little stressors right now. Texas is frozen solid. There’s a new strain of COVID each day. In the Canadian Armed Forces family world, posting season is looming. So much to poke at our emotional strongholds.

Did I let that toe open the floodway? You bet I did.

Had a good old melt-down—privately, in the comfort of my own bedroom—and then kept going.

Emotions are there for us to feel them. They are normal reactions to abnormal situations. I firmly believe in letting them out.

If you’re feeling, FEEL.

Feel it ALL. It’s yours to feel, friends. Keeping it inside will not help. And if you need help, talk to someone.

Only once you have felt it, can you strap on those shoes and get moving.

 

Brenda