Inner Kettle

On Wednesday I had a melt down in school.

That little piece of dark matter resting at the bottom of my stomach began to boil. My tea kettle belly was ready, my throat whistled, and steam floated from my eyes. A grade I had received on a final led me to sit on a stove and let of steam. Well, by the look of my warm boiled eyes, you could tell I didn’t perform to my standards. But this whistling belly of mine, that physical reaction, was in response to something much more overwhelming, a matter that had been repressed and consuming my last 405 days; the sudden passing of my mother.

As I reached the chair of my next class, I knew my kettle insides weren’t done heating. The steam came up again, and I quickly made my way over to the guidance office. As soon as my counselor shut the door, I whistled again with short gasps of air in between. The funeral’s podium I stood at dry faced, the corner I sat at after her burial, smiling with friends, that day, and the days of escapement through schoolwork and trying to keep busy, they were coming to a head. I was confused then on how to react and a defense mechanism had started, slowly doing more damage than good. The armor was just beginning to disintegrate and I was walking raw and in need to grieve.

That night I decided to look into therapy for the first time in my life. I had come to a realization of my loss and was ready to start tasting the gains of a new understanding of the gravity of this experience.

I believe in grief and turning the pain that comes with it into a reaffirmation and understanding of life. I believe resisting intense emotions causes them to linger, and hurt more deeply when they finally surface. Within time, my grief will give stability in troubled times. And at the end of the day, I will remain aware and in control of that inner kettle ready to whistle.