How shall we look?

It isn’t that I don’t want to write, I do, I’m struggling with what to write about. I’m working through emotion or emotions right now. Negative emotions.

I label them negative emotions because of the restrictive quality they have to them, tightness of chest, the pressure, and pulsing of my temples, repetition of thoughts that are of the same heavy quality.

What to call the emotions? Frustration? Anger? Fed-up-ness? I don’t know. I’m aware of them, so that is a start, but it is bleeding into the outside world and affecting those I care about. All I can do, at the moment, is to watch the emotion and thoughts and make a note of them.

There was a bright moment to my day. I know my ex-wife didn’t consider it a bright moment, and I’m sure she was frustrated and blamed me for what happened, but that’s ok.

I got a text message from her saying, “Can you FaceTime? [Daughter’s name] took her dry erase markers and drew all over her hands and arms. When I was washing them off, she said, ‘I’m sorry, Mom. I just wanted to have tattoos like daddy!’” It brings a smile to my mind thinking back on it. I did FaceTime with her, and I told her that she can’t draw on herself. I said, “Even Daddy doesn’t draw on himself, he has a professional do it!”

I miss her terribly. Due to COVID-19, and circumstances involving high-risk family members, my ex-wife and I agreed to suspend visitation. The last time I saw my daughter for visitation was on March 12th.

Now I’m back to not knowing what to write. Energy, or whatever you want to call it, feels blocked.

It reminds me of a passage from The Book of Mormon.

Alma and Amulek are two characters in The Book of Mormon. Both traveled about the land preaching of the Lamb of God, hope, repentance, and life eternal. It doesn’t take long for the elite to find out what Alma and Amulek are doing, and they retaliated. After all, how dare Alma and Amulek accuse them – Lawyers and Judges – of being wicked? They upheld the law, dammit! They were paragons of virtue!

Naturally, they capture Alma and Amulek and put them into prison. Each day Alma and Amulek were tortured, and, at one point, their captors ask, “How shall we look when we are damned?”

I imagine damnation looks and feels a lot like that: anger, retaliation, attacking others, causing harm and damage, etc., the opposite of love, joy, peace, and serenity. I imagine it is a permanent or semi-permanent condition similar to what I’m feeling now.

Isn’t that quite the pill to swallow?