Tears of a Clown ( a little long)

Tears of a Clown

Sometimes parts of the melodies or phrases in songs cause me to feel something I struggle to put into my own words, even if the rest of the song has nothing to do with why I feel that way.  Parts of Smokey Robinson’s “Tears of a Clown" have that effect on me:

Now there’s some sad things known to man,

But ain’t too much sadder than the tears of a clown.

and later…

I try to keep my sadness hid;

Smiling in the public eye,

But in my lonely room

I cry the tears of a clown.

Several months have passed since I posted anything here about my ongoing struggles with mood swings and their impact on my WLS journey.  If this topic is repetitive or of little interest to you, now would be a good time to opt out of reading any further. You see, over much of the past 20 years I became a bit of a master at hiding my true emotions from others behind a happy face and a heaping dinner plate.  When you have children, it often seems necessary to project stability and calm no matter what you are feeling at the time.  Work is another place where one is usually ill-advised to let your deepest emotions show.  Even with your spouse it can be hard to show them what you are really feeling lest they think they are to blame if that feeling isn’t consistently a positive one.

Putting on the happy face for others all the time can push any emotional distress you are experiencing into a dark little corner of self-doubt and discontent.   When you are someone who is prone to having more mood swings than most and ashamed of being an emotional guy anyway, you start to see yourself as ugly and unacceptable.  I allowed that to happen to me. 
Over the past year I have worked very hard at finding a path to self-acceptance and at being more open about how I am feeling, especially when I am feeling down.  I am very fortunate to have positive feelings about myself 80 or 90% of the time now instead of 10 or 20% of the time like I did before surgery. Overall I am happier and healthier now than I have been in my entire adult life. 

However, there are periods when I struggle to see the world through anything other than ****filled glasses, when I feel ugly and irreparably flawed.  It is at those times when I know that I need to reach out for support and I do… sometimes.  Yet there are still times when I fall into despair, when I fail at seeking out support and put on that damned happy face for others.  How sad and unnecessary.  My point here is that outward appearances aside, I am still a work in progress on my journey as, I’m sure, are most of you.  If you are in a good place right now, seek out one of your fellow travelers, get their story, and offer them the comfort they need to avoid shedding the tears of a clown in their lonely room.

RP