Emotional Day that Causes Other Buried Issues to Rise to the Surface
Posted by FlorenceMom.com on Thursday, October 25, 2018
Have you ever cried uncontrollably about something very petty and have no idea why? Like when a whole bunch of stress from other sad things in your life suddenly combine themselves to build a big burst. And you don't quite figure it out until after the crying is done and you get a quiet moment to analyze it.
That happened to me about 30 minutes ago. I cried to a complete stranger on the phone because something very petty caused disappointment about a program I'm trying to enroll in that I had hoped would help me go back to school. I normally don't cry about things like this but I think my visit to Investigator Farrah Turner's memorial patrol vehicle this morning was really upsetting to me. Then, somehow I was repressing some of it while I was on my way to pick up my toddler from his preschool.
I've never met Investigator Farrah Turner before but her passing really hit me. The shooting was 3 weeks ago and she suffered so much during those 3 weeks in the hospital; even got both of her feet amputated and then passed away not too long after that. I tried to make sense of it all and it's just senseless. There is no reason why she should have had this much pain before she passed away or for any of it to happen at all. The community had outpours of good things to say about her, how she volunteered her time to help kids; to help the community above all the things she was already doing to serve and protect Florence.
Then later today, I had an email exchange with a past employer about getting some documentation about a job that I lost through a restructure. I think that when I lost my job 7 months ago, I was so upset that I just didn't know how to grow from it. I've never lost a job before but I think this, however, gave me a reality check and the empathy to relate to everyone who has lost their job before. I now know how it feels; hopeless. Before this, I felt invincible. I was always the hardest worker who earned promotions and awards. I was not used to being the underdog; the one who is easily first to let go from an organization, but that's me and this email kind of helped me with a little bit of closure. It gave me confirmation that whatever happened 7 months ago needs to be let go. Cry it out and let it go.
The beginning of the day started out with one clear mission; to cut roses from my garden and bring them to the Florence County Judicial Center to honor and show my respect to Investigator Farrah Turner. I tried to pick the best set of flowers that would fit in my green tube of water that helps keep the flowers fresh a lot longer. I found one that had 2 roses in one stem. Using my garden shears, I used my best effort to cut off all the thorns because no matter how beautiful roses are, they will always have thorns. Oh the irony!
As I walked to the vehicle at Florence County Judicial Center, no matter how hard I tried to stop them, tears came. Then after placing the roses on top of the car, I had a few minutes and then had to go back to my car to compose myself and did a beeline to my 2 year old's preschool to pick him up. Then, later that afternoon, I checked my email and received the very important email from my past employer which surprisingly opened a wound I tried to forget about. Some minutes later, I received some bad news from the organization that I was hoping would help me move forward and go back to school. It's just that this has been such an emotional day and everything that I've tried to work so hard for just hasn't been going my way. And I think what it boiled down to is that it's the injustice for Farrah and I felt a little bit of that for myself today too, but of course mine is in no way the magnitude to what Investigator Farrah had to face.
We're waiting for the injustice to disappear. Somehow, we hope that we can find that rainbow after a storm but it doesn't seem like it's coming here. It seems like Florence and everybody else in this city just keep getting hit over and over again. Today just seems too much for me to bear! And then I cried to a stranger on the phone who probably thought I was crazy to cry over a little disappointment about my application. I apologized to her on the call for my unexpected cry. It just hit me all of sudden like a ton of bricks. Her bit of bad news was just enough to tip me over the edge and provoked me to continue my flow of tears that had started earlier in the day. I know that sometimes we deal with emotions very indirectly and the way I usually process my emotions is puzzling to me too.
In a span of 1.5 months, we've had a threat from Hurricane Florence, an active shooter who shot 7 officers with one that passed away on the same day, then, a threat from Hurricane Michael and now another officer who passed from the same shooting incident that happened 3 weeks ago. It just doesn't seem to get better.
We're waiting for the day where we can celebrate something again. Please let it come soon.
That happened to me about 30 minutes ago. I cried to a complete stranger on the phone because something very petty caused disappointment about a program I'm trying to enroll in that I had hoped would help me go back to school. I normally don't cry about things like this but I think my visit to Investigator Farrah Turner's memorial patrol vehicle this morning was really upsetting to me. Then, somehow I was repressing some of it while I was on my way to pick up my toddler from his preschool.
I've never met Investigator Farrah Turner before but her passing really hit me. The shooting was 3 weeks ago and she suffered so much during those 3 weeks in the hospital; even got both of her feet amputated and then passed away not too long after that. I tried to make sense of it all and it's just senseless. There is no reason why she should have had this much pain before she passed away or for any of it to happen at all. The community had outpours of good things to say about her, how she volunteered her time to help kids; to help the community above all the things she was already doing to serve and protect Florence.
Then later today, I had an email exchange with a past employer about getting some documentation about a job that I lost through a restructure. I think that when I lost my job 7 months ago, I was so upset that I just didn't know how to grow from it. I've never lost a job before but I think this, however, gave me a reality check and the empathy to relate to everyone who has lost their job before. I now know how it feels; hopeless. Before this, I felt invincible. I was always the hardest worker who earned promotions and awards. I was not used to being the underdog; the one who is easily first to let go from an organization, but that's me and this email kind of helped me with a little bit of closure. It gave me confirmation that whatever happened 7 months ago needs to be let go. Cry it out and let it go.
The beginning of the day started out with one clear mission; to cut roses from my garden and bring them to the Florence County Judicial Center to honor and show my respect to Investigator Farrah Turner. I tried to pick the best set of flowers that would fit in my green tube of water that helps keep the flowers fresh a lot longer. I found one that had 2 roses in one stem. Using my garden shears, I used my best effort to cut off all the thorns because no matter how beautiful roses are, they will always have thorns. Oh the irony!
As I walked to the vehicle at Florence County Judicial Center, no matter how hard I tried to stop them, tears came. Then after placing the roses on top of the car, I had a few minutes and then had to go back to my car to compose myself and did a beeline to my 2 year old's preschool to pick him up. Then, later that afternoon, I checked my email and received the very important email from my past employer which surprisingly opened a wound I tried to forget about. Some minutes later, I received some bad news from the organization that I was hoping would help me move forward and go back to school. It's just that this has been such an emotional day and everything that I've tried to work so hard for just hasn't been going my way. And I think what it boiled down to is that it's the injustice for Farrah and I felt a little bit of that for myself today too, but of course mine is in no way the magnitude to what Investigator Farrah had to face.
We're waiting for the injustice to disappear. Somehow, we hope that we can find that rainbow after a storm but it doesn't seem like it's coming here. It seems like Florence and everybody else in this city just keep getting hit over and over again. Today just seems too much for me to bear! And then I cried to a stranger on the phone who probably thought I was crazy to cry over a little disappointment about my application. I apologized to her on the call for my unexpected cry. It just hit me all of sudden like a ton of bricks. Her bit of bad news was just enough to tip me over the edge and provoked me to continue my flow of tears that had started earlier in the day. I know that sometimes we deal with emotions very indirectly and the way I usually process my emotions is puzzling to me too.
In a span of 1.5 months, we've had a threat from Hurricane Florence, an active shooter who shot 7 officers with one that passed away on the same day, then, a threat from Hurricane Michael and now another officer who passed from the same shooting incident that happened 3 weeks ago. It just doesn't seem to get better.
We're waiting for the day where we can celebrate something again. Please let it come soon.
Originally from Southern California, we had moved here when my husband got out of the military and began his civilian work at the Duke Energy Power Plant in Hartsville. I had a hard time finding family-friendly resources online in Florence when we moved here in 2013 so I started writing and taking pictures of our adventures and places we've been. This website is a collection of several years of adventures. I hope this helps you as a transplant or new mom. I have two sons who were both born in Florence at the McLeod Hospital.
