Unwell

"I'm not crazy, I'm just a little unwell," are the famous lyrics written by Rob Thomas of my favorite band, Matchbox Twenty. I think every human being on the face of the freaking planet can relate to that sentence. Thomas goes on to say, "...just stay a while and maybe then you'll see a different side of me." That final line that everybody wants to tell the person they fall in love with.

Well this song hit me hard about four years ago. It was the winter of 2016 and I had just moved back in with my parents. We decided I'd stay for a couple months to support them and myself throughout the grieving process from the loss of my younger brother, Sam.

For three months during that winter, it was me, my youngest brother Shane and my two parents living under one roof. It felt off. Everything was different, now that Sam was gone. Shane and I had spent our entire lives living together with another sibling, and those months I lived there after Sam's passing, the house seemed empty. His room was the same as how he had left it four months prior. There was still mud on his tennis shoes in the mud room. None of us touched his stuff. During those three winter months, I listened to A LOT of music.

I'll never forget it. I was working out one evening and this song, Unwell, came on. It was the perfect beat to jog to. So...I started jogging. That banjo hook that is played right at the beginning of the song sat my mind down and forced me to feel all the emotions I had been burying in a place deep down inside my heart. I felt the sadness coming up from my gut and into my face as I kept jogging to the song.

Now, you have to know...I had been so strong for the past month living with my rents. I watched my mother cry almost everyday I was there. I watched my 16 year-old brother try to comfort her and I watched my dad transform his work into his life to avoid reality. He became more of a workaholic than he already was. I felt like I was being the strong one. The person they all could vent and cry to. It sounds messed up, but I wasn't really upset or sad. I guess I was just numb. Maybe that's how I cope with tragedies like that.

So anyways, now that you know that, I can explain why this experience was so important to me. As I kept jogging faster and faster with more energy and passion, I started to feel tears well up behind my eyes. The bridge of the song is where I always loose my sh**. Thomas sings, "I've been talking in my sleep. Pretty soon they'll come to get me. Yeah, they're taking me away!" That build up kills me every time. To me, it was like all the bad things that had happened during my life were surfacing in my mind and I was finally just accepting all of them... while jogging in a community YMCA (don't forget that).

This song carries so much meaning to me because it took me to a place where I had to face my pain. After a year later, I realized that that night at the gym was the first step I took in my healing process. That song triggered something in my mind that made my heart ache (but in a good way). I cried heavy tears as I jogged down the astroturf.

I related so much to those lyrics, "I'm not crazy, I'm just a little unwell." I learned that it was okay to cry. It's okay to be vulnerable, I'm a human. It's okay for other people to see me cry too. I don't have to put on a show for anyone, I'm just me and I'm going through some heavy stuff right now. I'm going through life. I can heal from this too because my life isn't over. I'm not crazy, I'm just a little unwell...right now.

Now, four years later, every time I hear that song I think of that night at the YMCA. I think of me jogging to the beat and basically opening my heart up to the pain I had been numbing. I wasn't at a church. I wasn't with friends. I wasn't with family. I wasn't with anyone else but myself. And I began to heal alone with the help of that song.