confession #1: bottle it up

i have a problem with bottling it up. and by "it" i mean anger or frustration or disappointment or...the list could go on. instead of dealing with whatever and whomever has incited these emotions i hold it in.
i let it marinate.
fester, really.
i let it get big and ugly.
some simple little mistake that could easily be dealt with and forgotten becomes an all consuming, nasty funk that i can't shake because i won't talk about it. sometimes i like to bathe in the sludge of it all.
i like to feel sorry for myself.
i like to be the innocent victim.
i like to blame everyone else.

the problem with bottling it up is that all that trapped emotion can't stay there forever. i guess for some people it leaks out here and there, but i am not one of those people. eventually, my bottle erupts (complete with incredulous tears) into ridiculous spews of accusations and onslaughts that have mutated from tiny miscommunications or unaware offenses into intentional, direct attacks and hurtful, premeditated actions. my poor husb gets the brunt of this emotional pile up reaction just because i spend the most time with him so he has more opportunity to offend than others. it's not because he's always doing things wrong, but because when some little thing does, indeed, bother me instead of just saying "hey, that hurt my feelings" or "i don't understand why you did that," i would rather take a roll in the sewer of self-pity.

the amusing part about this whole thing thing is that usually when i'm in one of these bottling moods i try to get back at the perpetrator. which is crazy because usually the perp doesn't even know i'm mad, so i always just end up wasting time doing silly little things that don't really make me feel better. for example,  just yesterday i got grumpy at bry (i honestly don't even remember why and it was literally yesterday. i'm dumb.) so i decided i was going to get back at him and put the freshly washed slip cover back on the couch by myself. this is a process that is really difficult for one person (especially me) to tackle because it requires one to move the whole couch and to wrestle with a stretchy, stubborn slipcover. it's really a two person job.  bry had already promised to do it, but, just to stick to him, i did it myself. and it was hard and awful. i was fuming and grumpy. in other words, i just made life more difficult for myself. when bryan saw it he knew exactly why i had done it. he called me out on it. he said "why didn't you just wait on me? i know it's because you were grumpy and you thought 'i'll show him!'" darn. he knows me too well.

let me just say, because i'm a sinner and need to save some tiny bit of face, this is not an everyday occurrence. honestly, i don't even think it's an every week occurrence (you can ask the husb to be sure). but it does happen. and it is ridiculous. and i do hate it. usually my husb has NO IDEA that he's offended me or that i've even been mad for hours. after i've spewed all over him, he says something like "why didn't you just tell me? why did you let it go so long?"

he handles it all with much love and grace. 

i'm certainly thankful for him. 

we usually laugh about it afterwards.

you'd think i'd have learned my lesson by now, but i'm still working on it. thanks for being patient with me, sweet husb. thanks for loving me with a Christ-centered love that endures despite flaws and imperfections and solo-job-slipcover retributions.