Comfortably Numb

What is your very first childhood memory?

I was around the age of three. My parents had just moved to Cincinnati, and we were living in a house in a suburb north of the city, I was in my room, it was dark. There was a piece of artwork in my room in the shape of balloons. I was standing in my crib.

When you think back to your childhood, I bet a lot of things bring you comfort. I had a very good childhood. I lived and played in a neighborhood with a lot of other kids my age.  We spent most of our time outside regardless of the weather. And most of our days revolved around playing whichever sport was in that particular season. As we grew older, we spent our nights playing flashlight tag. I remember coming home well past dark, dressed head to toe in black and always being really, really sweaty. 

When you reminisce you seem to block out some of the negative memories - the fist fights, the bad grades, the backtalking to adults (although, maybe that was just a "me" problem) - and focus on the more cherished moments. Childhood trauma and grief are foreign to most and live in the perpetual shadows of human existence. But why? Is it a human condition where we block out negative memoires in order to progress forward. Is our brain protecting us from ourselves? Or have we been conditioned to bury those painful memories so deep; we lose them forever?

In coaching, you teach your players to, "get comfortable, being uncomfortable." It's a tricky way of convincing a child to accept failure and learn to try new things. 

When Kyle was 9 or 10, we were invited by a major league scout and family friend to take batting practice at a local high school. The scout asked Kyle to make some slight changes in his swing to give himself extra power. It the first of many times a coach would ask him to make adjustments in order to be more successful. 

And it's no different when a teacher asks you to interpret a text a differently or a boss asks you to adjust a habit you've developed at work. The delivery may differ, but the message is always the same, "We need you to be better." And in order to be better sometimes you need to take a position that seems undesirable. That's oftentimes called growth.

We are bombarded with messaging constantly that affects our subconscious thought in ways we cannot possibly comprehend. Every conscious decision is driven by millions of unconscious thoughts we cannot identify. In fact, some philosophers would argue that conscious thought is an illusion and that every thought or action we have comes from a source we are unaware of. So, is what we tend to remember and forget even under our own control? 

Grief is uncontrollable. The grief journey, as I've mentioned before, is not linear but rather circuitous. One minute you're happy and the next a song comes on the radio and you're in tears, which happened to me this week. I went to get our puppy some food and the song "Teardrop" by Massive Attack came on Spotify. It's not a song I remember Kyle enjoying, but it reminded me of him being in my truck alongside me. I'm controlling the vehicle on the road. I'm controlling the station I listen to on the radio. But I am not controlling my emotions. I am at the behest of something I cannot comprehend. I do not, in this moment, exercise free will as I have been taught is my right as an American. 

We tend to dull these seemingly negative emotions through a variety of measure. Some eat. Some drink. Some drug and some manifest their grief in violent and disturbing manners. But they are there. The grief and the pain are all there, lying in our subconscious waiting to attack like a snake in the grass.

On my recent travels, I began taking Kyle's favorite stuffed animal with me. Wolfie, was a stuffed wolf Kyle received on his 5th birthday. Kyle wasn't a particularly big stuffed animal kid (unlike his sister who holds court with her's daily), but Wolfie was always there including next to him on the morning he died. And now, Wolfie comes with me. Wolfie has now officially been through Terminal A at the Dallas-Fort Worth airport. Wolfie has stayed in a Paducah, KY Comfort Inn and Wolfie has been crushed by the weight of my fat ass in my martial bed in Knoxville. I haven't slept with a stuffed animal since my Flash Light Tag days so why do I have him now? I use him was a way to comfort myself during the evenings when I'm reminded of Kyle's last night. Holding Wolfie is a way for me to keep the negative thoughts at bay and feel a closeness with my son.

Last week I went to bed crying, which hasn't happened since the day after he died. I could have gone back downstairs and numbed myself with food or drink, but I didn't. I gripped Wolfie tight, and I cried. And instead of burying my emotions deep somewhere where they would eventually strike, I leaned into those feelings and came out the other side...happy. I got comfortable being uncomfortable and think I learned a new way to grieve. I've now inventoried that emotion subconsciously for a later date. I am stronger that I was a moment before I cried in bed*.

When we grieve openly, we allow ourselves to be vulnerable. Vulnerability is a powerful emotion, and it helps develop trust between people. The day Kyle died his friends from school and church gathered to talk about him. When I found out, I wanted to go see them. However, someone from our church convinced me to stay home. Was it to protect me or them from the hard conversation we were bound to have? Or was it a fear of allowing someone to be vulnerable in front of others? And during Kyle's service - there was never of question of whether or not I would speak. No one knew Kyle better than me and I wasn't going to allow him to be eulogized by someone that couldn't accurately describe who he was or what he meant to so many. His death gave me strengths I didn't know I had, which is ironic given the circumstances.

Your memories are there to serve as a reminder as well as to caution and protect you from pain. But when pain becomes your primary emotion, you can either choose to run towards or away. In this instance, choosing to run headfirst into my pain isn't a sign of weakness, but of strength. I am growing comfortable being uncomfortable and it may just save my life. 

* An oddly funny footnote to this story is that while this was happening Erica was brushing her teeth. She heard me crying and hollered out from the bathroom (mimics speaking with a mouth full of toothpaste and a toothbrush, "Are you okay?"). It's funny because at any moment in our house someone can be crying and it's no longer alarming... it's just accepted like hearing someone fart, "Was that you?" and you simply move on.