Bring out your Dead

By G.W. Hogg
©2-12-00

“You know, you really shouldn’t keep your feelings bottled up.”
“I don’t.”
“Yes you do. You need to let your feeling show. It’s just not good for you to keep things inside. You don’t want to explode someday”
“You’re confusing things. There is a big difference between keeping things bottled up, and neatly packing them away in a cupboard.”
“No there isn’t.”
“Oh but there is. Bottling them up means that you stuff them away and try never to see them again. I know where my demons are kept. They are neatly shelved and put away. I can get them out at any time and look them over. I just don’t want to.”
“That’s the same thing.”
“No. To me, it’s like a gravestone. It tells you what is buried there. I have no desire to dig up the corpse just so I can experience the smell of rotting flesh.”
“That’s a disgusting analogy.”
“But that is how it is. Airing things out will not remove the stink. Things happen. If I do not understand why I don’t want to dwell on it. I know something happened. I know I was hurt by it, but I do not think I’ll ever understand the why, so I put it away. If I ever feel the need to experience the hurt, I can always drag it back out again. I just don’t see the point in feeling the pain again.”
“But you’re not dealing with it.”
“Yes I am. It is one thing to fall and break your arm. You know how it happened. You remember the pain of it. And you can say to yourself, ‘I’ll never do that again’. But when someone does something to you, understanding why does not mean it will never happen again. It is something that someone did and they may do it again. You learn to deal with it and put the hurt away. The hurt is there, always will be. I just choose not to keep experiencing it over and over.”
“But wouldn’t you feel better if you could forgive someone for what they have done?”
“No, that doesn’t change what was done, it only makes them feel better.”
“But talking it over helps.”
“No, it doesn’t really. I’ve just learned to accept what happens.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“The why of some things cannot be understood. Endlessly going over something is like poking yourself with a pin. You may get used to it, but you’ll never like it. I just don’t see the reason to go and poke myself.
“But you need to deal with these things.”
“You may like to, I don’t. Sure, I could get used to poking myself with a pin, but I’d rather not. I deal with things by not poking myself with them.”
“But talking about it helps.”
“I’ve never found it so.