One Kind of Show Always Makes Me Cry

some thoughts on a realization I had about myself

This last week I had an amazing time at St Stephen’s University residency, but there were times throughout the week that I just wanted to run away and hide somewhere outside. I never got up during class to escape, but I did make quick exits between lectures to hide in a corner with the guitar or go on a walk by the water.

What was so frustrating about this is that I had no idea why. I was in one of my favorite places with my favorite people. There seemed to be no reason why I felt this way.

Here is one journal entry:

What’s the point of breakthroughs
if you slip back into the same
old patterns?

Or is Brian right and life is
more of a spiral or like rings on
a tree that are ever-expanding?

But sometimes it is tiring to
go through the same thing
again. To slip back into darkness.

Road then tunnel.
Road then tunnel.
Road then tunnel.

I just want daylight.

But who’s building all these
(****) tunnels?
And why they have my name on them?

Do I have the power to stop
building?

And if I stop building, will I
just hit a mountain I can’t cross?
I guess all I can do is keep
digging.

And another in which I was reflecting on the same experience:

What am I running from?
What is this restlessness?
How could I want to leave
this room now?

A place where people accept
me, yet I just want to
run outside and jump into
the water or sit on a nice
rock.

What is this?

Why am I feeling these panicky
feelings right now? right here?

This place is lovely.
The people are amazing.

Yet I feel like I can’t
breathe. I just don’t know.

When does the oxygen mask
drop from the ceiling because
I feel like I’m endlessly
falling.

This was so discombobulating. I was exactly where I wanted to be, doing what I love to do, but I felt so trapped at times, and I couldn’t figure it out.

And then as my flight attendant answered a question about the paper towels in the bathroom on the airplane from Bangor to Charlotte, it hit me.

---

Anytime Laura and I watch a show like America’s Got Talent, there are times when a performance brings tears to my eyes. It’s never really about the quality of the performance itself. There are many talented singers, dancers, comedians, and musicians who pass by unnoticed and are much more talented than the ones who bring tears to my eyes. But, on occasion, someone would perform their talent in such a way that I would just start tearing up.

I think it has something to do with watching someone do something they are meant to do or perhaps even called to do.

Watching them get the recognition they’ve long deserved is so fulfilling. I’ve guessed at times that my real hangup is that I don’t feel like I’ve found that yet—or at least reached the potential of whatever that is.

On Sunday evening, my friends Greg and Jordan were sitting on either side of me in airplane from Bangor to Charlotte—residency was officially coming to a close for us.

Our flight attendant was amazing. She was a tall woman, probably in her 50s. It looked like she had the same hairdo for her entire tenure as a flight attendant, and she was on fire. Her interactions with us were amazing. Even the way she handed out pretzels was on point. Is this sentence even real?

And, honestly, I can’t capture her essence in words.

But if anyone has ever been called to be a flight attendant, it was her.

At one point on the flight, I got up to use the restroom, and I had taken the last paper towel. But it was in such a strange spot that I wasn’t exactly sure if I was just missing something obvious, so I dried my hands off, stepped back into the aisle and said, “I think the bathroom is out of paper towels.”

She looked up at me with her food moved over into one cheek like a chipmunk and said, “You think?”

When I explained why I wasn’t exactly sure, she immediately understood and just had this look about her I wish I could describe.

And right there a familiar feeling hit me, a feeling I’ve felt many times before while watching AGT or, to give you a concrete example, the live action Cinderella movie. I stopped myself from tearing up, and the feeling of joy, pride, longing, and whatever else comes with that shifted into another familiar feeling, a pain rising from my stomach to my chest.

Oh.

So that’s what that is.

The last week flashed before my eyes.

Looking for the exit.

Searching for a way out.

Rushing to the guitar.

Almost running down to the river after class.

Skipping across the low tide seaweed to get to the river to wade out and skip rocks so nobody could reach me.

And then I remembered what happened before each of those times. Maybe it was a remark I made in class that resonated with everyone. Maybe I shared a poem or haiku. Maybe it was my friend Josh saying, “Yeah, Daniel just does that” when the teacher looked blown away by something I read aloud. Maybe it was the look of pride in Jordan’s eyes or the nod of approval from Greg or the fistbump from Bradley or the laugh from Peter or the kindness in everyone’s faces.

I realized that I was feeling like I was doing exactly what I was meant to be doing, but because of how I was raised, I didn't allow myself to cry, to feel, to be proud, to experience the acceptance, love, and joy that came from others as I shared my gift.

And so it turned into the deep sadness, the rising pain from my stomach to the chest, and the flight response was triggered.

---

When this hit me all at once, I immediately shared it with my friends on the plane. They had sat with me throughout those moments. They accompanied me on the rocks. And now they got to know why.

I could tell by the looks on their faces that I had found it.

And now something new lies before me.

I have to keep writing. Yes, I’ll continue to write theological pieces and exegetical essays, but I need to keep exploring and discovering that other side of me, the side that writes poetry and pours his heart into music.

I need to learn to accept the positive effect I have only people through those mediums, even though it doesn’t seem like much to me because it seems to come so natural. And maybe that’s the point.

And it isn’t the bad kind of pride. It isn’t braggadocios. It isn’t something to be ashamed of.

It’s me.

When despair for the world grows in me, and I wake in the night at the least sound in fear of why my life and my children’s lives may be, I grab my notebook and laptop, settle into that familiar booth at the diner, and pour my heart out in words. I come into the peace of flow and rhythm and creativity who expel the forethought of grief by waking me up to the present. I come into the presence of my integrated self. And I feel in my mind the convergence of left and right, and all of the emotion I have worked so hard to avoid wells up within me, and I am free.

This realization helped me so much. Thanks to Rachael for teaching me to ask where my feet are. Thanks to Jordan for reminding me that big feelings are okay. And thanks to Greg for asking me over and over, “Where do you feel that in your body?” And thanks to all of my friends who affirm who I am when I refuse to myself. Thank you.