Day #31

Today marked an important 'first' for me: I told someone who doesn't know me well that "...my son passed away two weeks before Christmas." Yeah, I went there.  I dropped a nuke on an unsuspecting soul. 

I had gone to see my chiropractor because my neck and upper back have been super stiff the last 2 or 3 days. We don't know each other that well, my chiro and me; I've only seen her a handful of times over the last 3 years, give or take. After some initial pleasantries - "How were your holidays?", "Terrible.", "Oh, I'm sorry to hear that." - she started asking about possible causes for the stiffness. I offered stress as the likely culprit. She agreed that stress could definitely do it and then proceeded to do her best to help my muscles relax. After a few minutes she stopped, acknowledged that I was "super tight" and then asked if the cause of my stress was going to be short lived or sustained. Rather than tip toe around why my body was a giant knot of cramped muscles, I just ripped the bandaid off and told her what had happened. Not the detail of it. Just that Damian had died, by accident, 2 weeks before Christmas. 

I'm not sure what I was expecting in terms of a response - what I got wasn't inappropriate, insensitive or weird; no, all good there - but I didn't expect the feeling of guilt that came over me after I shared this tidbit of personal trivia. No sooner had the words left my mouth that I felt like I had just intentionally played the sympathy card. "Oh, poor me. My son died. Feel sorry for me." Along for the ride on this guilt trip came shame. "Wow. Using the death of my son to emotionally manipulate strangers. That's low...even for me. I'm pathetic."

After today's lesson in "How my mind works" I think it best if from now on I only share this part of me on a need-to-know basis. And as near as I can tell, pretty much everyone who needs to know already does so what's left to talk about? 

Exactly. 


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