A Pillow in Amarillo

I'd just gotten home from a work trip. Less than 24 hours later, we were leaving for a 20-hour drive to vacation in Colorado.

I was packing the toiletry bag, then the food bag, then back to the toiletry bag...mind jumping, hands moving faster than I could keep up. I was telling myself that by working quickly, I could rest faster and get to a state of calm. (Which is hilarious...because the faster I would work, the more worked up I'd get.)

I never got to that state of calm I was trying to create.

I'd make small mistakes, and when Jonathan would notice them, I'd snap at him for noticing, and he rightfully would get frustrated back. Underneath the snippiness was something I wasn't letting myself name. I felt like I had no choice. The vacation had been planned for a long time...so I told myself there was no room to decompress, and I didn't need any.

I've always been the successful one who had it all together. I never wanted to give anyone reason to doubt that, including myself.

We left at sunrise. I was in the passenger seat with Jonathan...and our dog Bendu in the backseat.

By our second or third stop, Jonathan had started to pry. He could tell I was distracted. I kept brushing him off. We were starting our vacation. I felt like I needed to be happy, talking about good things. I didn't want to be a burden.

So I kept it bottled.

(Jonathan has had a name for this for years. He calls me an "Irish bottle" — pressure builds quietly until I pop.)

At a Target parking lot somewhere outside Amarillo, he tried again.

"It's like you aren't here."

It hit me as another trigger, not a recognition. I was trying so hard to be there...and I was being told I wasn't. He coaxed me to express what I was feeling. And I couldn't answer. I was containing so much emotion that I didn't even know what I was feeling anymore.

Then it surfaced: anger. I'd been feeling angry for some time, and I didn't know how to express it. (I still struggle with expressing anger.) Jonathan suggested I scream into a pillow, which felt childish at the time...like a toddler having a temper tantrum.

But as we pulled out of the parking lot, I lifted my head, pulled the travel pillow from behind it, held it to my face, and screamed.

It came out cathartic and terrifying at the same time. I don't normally let anger out, let alone explode like this. Bendu leaned over the seat, nudging me with his nose, trying to give me kisses. Jonathan stayed quiet, letting it happen.

When I finally pulled the pillow away, he reached over and took my hand. "I'm proud of you," he said.

I hadn't expected that. I'd been bracing for him to be upset that I'd lost it. Instead, he was proud of me for finally letting it out.

Something released. The pressure I'd been holding for weeks finally had somewhere to go, and my head was clearer than it had been in days.

Later that week, lying in bed in Colorado looking at the mountains, I understood what that scream had actually been about. I'd wanted to be in a place of joy so badly, especially on vacation, that forcing it was emotionally keeping me out. The harder I tried, the less I could feel it.

Me trying to be present was making me less present.

I just finished reading The Antidote by Oliver Burkeman. It's a book about the negative path to happiness — the stoic kind, where you stop chasing it directly and let it find you.

Nothing about it had felt connected to that year-old scream...until I got to the last few pages.

"...Happiness and vulnerability are often the same thing."

When we think of vulnerability, we tend to think of it as something we offer to other people. And the strange thing is...that's not where the struggle lives.

The struggle lives in being vulnerable with myself.

Letting myself feel what I'm actually feeling...naming it before I have a polished story for it...admitting I'm not okay when my emotions are high.

I still tend to get into the cycle. I'm not very good at acknowledging it in real time, but I'm trying to get better at it.

A few weeks ago, I was overwhelmed with the business. Too many ideas, no sustainable process, learning everything on the fly. My Irish bottle cycle is to push harder and push longer. Stay up later. Take on more. Tell myself I just need one more focused week and I'll figure it out.

Instead (and I know this is so cliche)...I looked at myself in the bathroom mirror.

I could see the bags under my eyes. And I said out loud to my reflection: "I am struggling."

Then I went to Jonathan and asked him for help wrangling my process. (Which was harder than the mirror moment...admitting something to myself is private; admitting it out loud means you can't take it back.)

He didn't make it a big deal. He listened, and we worked through it together. Some of the weight I'd been carrying wasn't mine to carry alone, and the only way I'd figured that out was by asking.

Me seeking help and being vulnerable started with me first admitting to myself that I needed it.

If we all learn to be a little more vulnerable (starting with ourselves...) then maybe we can all make the world a happier place.

✨ Where are you withholding happiness from yourself by not being vulnerable?

🪷 Nora