I’ve said it here before, but the fact is that in our family, the women in particular are emotionally strongest when facing the emotionally most devastating. The normal, more trivial upsets in life take chips out, hurt, anger and annoy but for a little while. Heal, but leave scars. The danger is only if we are gouged too deeply in too many places all at once; we may crumble into dust if struck in a weak spot then.
But the major blows, the hardest flung, even if you put them in some hopeful group of threes and count to three forever, are taken with hardly a flinch. The other day I once again felt the oddness of an almost blanket-enveloping aura that both protected and enclosed. Breathing becomes shallow and short. Movement is in slow and steady motion. The process is a feeling of the brain ordering the body to gentle efficiency, and everything that needs to be done is accomplished effectively. Calm becomes a balm to sooth and block the pain, and we stand ready to go on to handle more–and do.
It would be nice, I think, to be harder than the marble that only with the skill of Michelangelo’s hammer and chisel could a smooth polished thing of beauty be created when the work of life is done.
The Lost Children: A Charity Anthology
I checked out your weblog and find it interesting. Check out mine and give me some comment too…
From my understanding this is the rule about women in general; that women tend to fall apart a the small things, but are better and more cool headed in emergency situations. obviously that is a completely generalized statement…but I find it interesting that your particular family conforms to this rule that i learned about a long time ago.
Obviously it’s not true in all cases, but I think that women are more genetically geared to handle stress in a way that allows them to get things done.