emotions? hand me a bottle

author's pre-post-script: ewwwww...this seems un-quippy and not at all funny.
don't read it. and if you do, let me know if i am a stupid sentimental POS.

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not the drinkin' kind of bottle. the hide-away-your-feelings-until-they-suddenly-burst-out-unexpectedly-at-your-mom-husband-or-friend bottle. you know, that kind of bottle.

or maybe a bucket.

this may seem like an odd topic. and maybe it is. maybe i am not sure where i'm going with this. let me think....

ok, well first, i realized today as i was driving that there is nothing like seeing your life as reflected by others to help appreciate it. the grass here is so green. the lorries are like box faced, not like semis at home with their long noses. the road is curvy, for no reason. the clouds are huge and puffy and when the sun comes out it makes you wonder why you are wearing the blue scarf you so carefully picked out. but then it goes back behind a cloud, and you remember.

the hedges make it impossible to sight see, but then there is a sudden break and i see my favorite spot in england. it's nothing special, really. just a stone church in the back of a field of this green-all-year-round grass. in the field there are two bay horses, always grazing.

it is a standard charming spot, but to me, more because it is like a flash as i drive along the hedge-lined roads. a peek. a spot too dangerous to stop and take a photograph, but that makes it more special because every time i see in, i feel happy about england. my life here.

why was i so emotional as i drove along belting out a pop song from 2004? i think it was two-fold. first, my parents just left. all of these familiar things that i have begun to take for granted, were new to them. charming. exciting. british. i could explain things like funny road signs and Norman architecture. i shared stories about my coming to this place and growing as so i could begin to take it for granted.

and second, because dan was supposed to be home sunday afternoon and isn't home. not monday. maybe not tuesday. i was upset when i heard this on sunday morning. not devastated. not my-life-is-over-without-one-more-day-with-him hysterical. more irritated, frustrated.

this morning when i found out it would be yet another 24 hours, or more. i actually laughed. it was silly! how can we have this? why is one more day after months so much harder? ha! haha!

then i got in the car. i popped in a CD from '04 and saw my commute to run errands as my parents saw it last week. saw this extra 24 hours as a way to get all of these emotions, that i would ordinarily tend to bottle up or burst forth (both unhealthy, i might add) just exist. i sang! i got teary! i laughed at how silly i felt! i put my face up to the sunny window and really took a minute to let my cheek get hot. i let myself miss dan. i let myself get excited for him to come home. i noticed things. i let irritation, frustration, anxiety, sadness, happiness, silliness, sing-a-longy-ness, and aloneness, especially aloneness, all exist.

now i just feel strange, like after a good cry, and right before one, too. it's a good feeling. a jumble feeling. i can have a most fantastic day under an un-fantastic circumstance. how odd. maybe like when people laugh and tell jokes at funerals or cry at weddings...i'm waging my battle against sentimentality or melodrama or co-dependence or hysteria or ungratefulness. dan will come home. maybe not tomorrow, but sometime. and, really, my life is f*ing awesome. i am happy. that's ok. i am sad, and that's ok, too.

for now, i'm glad to be a bucket full of good ol' fashioned jumble.