About thirty yards from the house, we have what we lovingly refer to as "The Barn." What it really is is a very large garage with two oversized slide-up doors in the front, a regular walk-in side door, and a large slide-up rear door. It's where all of my dad's tools and workbenches are, where the tractor lives, where all of the storage space is, and where my treadmill is. It's big, cold, and quiet--a place to get away to; a place where I can work out, sweat, be alone. I go to The Barn at all times of the night and day--eight in the morning; eight at night; two in the afternoon; two in the wee hours. It's a place of renewal for me. A place where I can go privately and introspect, review, assess, release.
Lately, with the economy in the gutter and my father worrying much more than he should about finances, I've been using The Barn a lot. I go there to cry. I certainly can't cry in the house. If either of my parents saw me crying, it would do nobody any good. I hold things together. I keep things running smoothly. That's my role here. My parents know that; I know that. And although I know they would be understanding and wonderfully supportive if they caught me in a moment of weakness, it would burden them emotionally and that simply is not acceptable to me. And so.....I carefully pick and choose my crying places and my crying times. Most of the time, I choose The Barn. Other times, it's the bathroom (with the door locked). Sometimes it's in my car, to run an errand. Sometimes it's very late at night in my bedroom.
My point here being........I've discovered that it's okay to have a place and a time where I can go and just cry. Caring for one's parents, or your kids, or just taking care of yourself can be tough. Stuff happens. Stress builds up. We need to have places where we can go and cry it out.
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Good for you, D. My friend Judith, years ago, taught me that she had to have a place that was special to her. Whenever she moved she sought out her "place." This feels very like that to me. My place is the woods between here and North Beach and the beach itself. When I first learned of this necessity, Judith's "place" was an ancient burial ground. Her next one, when she moved, was in a sculpture garden. When I was a child it was a place I named "wishing creek." I would walk there with an old bedspread and a sack lunch and a library book and pnut butter sandwich picnic and read under a tree by the water. As an adult I went back to visit the spot. There was no water left, the creek had been so minimal. But in my child's mind it had been perfect and would always be flowing, crystal clear and spring fed from some magical place. In my memory, the tree by the water was at the edge of a large field. But in reality it was in the side yard of a nearby house next to the railroad tracks, not half a block from my own house and next door to the lumber yard and feed mill. I really was able, as a child, to block all those details out and just see the tree, the brook, the trains going by to other worlds.
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