Emotional Cripple

Dear Bono,

I am an emotional cripple.  I really feel like most of the time I just feel.... nothing?  No, not nothing.  Just flat.  Little punctuations of emotion show through occasionally.  Usually, this is signified by an exclamation point signifying anger or frustration.  Occasionally, maybe a comma of calm and joyful peace.  Rarely, it's a hyphen of sadness.   I tend to bury that sadness.

The difficulty of my life escapes my exterior during sad movies.  I melt into a mess of goopy tears that the 3 year olds sitting next to me in any given Pixar movie peer at from behind their 3-D glasses.

I returned today from a laparoscopic surgery class in Toronto.  That sounds pretty bad-ass of me, doesn't it?  Bono, I took out a pig's kidney from one 10 millimeter and two 5 millimeter incisions on her back.  I mean, think of how good she would look in a bikini, if only pigs wore bikinis, and, obviously if she wasn't put down at the end of the day.  Still... I am pretty awesome.

Except I'm not.  At least that's how I feel.  I feel like a small fish in a huge ocean.  Maybe even one of those fish that live in the dark depths that largely go unnoticed by everyone else.  A guy getting into my shuttle from the red parking lot to the airport on the way to Toronto stepped on my right foot, moved, then stepped on my left, never noticing I was there.  I want to shout, "I'm right HERE, don't step on me!" But I don't.  Because I bury feelings.

I managed to get an email during my trip to Toronto-my phone functions were turned off due to the high roaming charges that I cannot afford.  Despite my recent 32nd birthday, I am too laden with student loans to pay 50 cents per text and 89 cents per minute on the phone.  The email let me know my sister in law has cancer.  She spent her birthday in the hospital getting more and more blood tests.

Bono, why is that?  Why do bad things happen to good people?  I know that this is a generic questions, and of course I am not really asking you.  I think that this is more of an address to God, and I know you are not God, except maybe in the way Alec Baldwin was God in "Malice."

During my layover at LaGuardia, I called my in-laws.  My husband doesn't yet know his sister has cancer because he is halfway across the world.  Bono, I realize I haven't written you in over a year.  I will have to fill you in on all that later.  I didn't cry.  I felt flat, yet again.  On my flight home, I listened to music, skipping songs that were incongruent with my mood.  I found the songs I rested on-Phosphorescent "Song for Zula", U2 "So cruel", "Love is Blindness", "One", The Ark "Stay With Me", Ryan Adams "Two", Coldplay "The Scientist", all reflected a bitter sort of love, one that may or may not long for something better. I guess that's how I feel really.  Not flat, but not brightly polished like so many of the people around me are.  More dull, but not in a boring sort of way.  Dull the edges of my antique mirror-the one that distorts my face with the blotches and stretching that happens as mirrors lose their sparkle.

Bono, I will try and be better about writing you.

Sincerely,

Me