Trying to find a socially acceptable way to discharge negative emotions has been a lifelong quest for me.

As a high schooler, after watching the 1989 movie Dead Poets Society, I would regularly yawp out in nature when things got to be too much.

Since then, I’ve discovered swimming, live music, and waterfalls. All of those things are weather- and location-dependent, or “subject to availability.”

Sometimes I can let it all out in a meditation. I can’t plan an outcome for a meditation and expect success. That isn’t how it works for me. Often, when I’m at my most stressed, I’m also at my lowest functioning, and it’s really hard to be clear-headed about my options for de-escalation.

Have you been there?

This past weekend was my 20th high school reunion.

I didn’t WANT to feel anxious about it (you can go here to read  more about meta-emotions… and sex, just for fair warning), but as the day crept closer, I started worrying about dumb things like what would I wear and what would I do if I was crawling out of my skin with anxiety the day of the event.

How could I deal with all my poorly packaged emotions from that time in my life in a healthy, healing way?

Heck if I knew. I found out there was a gong bath the night before the reunion and knew that would be a good start.

Every gong bath is different, but one thing I have noticed at several of them is the sense that the guys (and sometimes a lady) who are playing the gongs are holding back. Maybe because they don’t want to scare first-timers away? As a person who tends towards super anxiety, I go there for a cleanse, and I NEED the intensity of the full on climax of gongs in the middle of the gong bath to really let go of the stuff I walk in there with.

I’d like to say I’ve never been more anxious at a gong bath, but that probably isn’t true, because I’ve gone into several in a pretty bad mood. But this time in particular I was full of directionless negative emotions – a dark cloud of negativity had me in a full embrace. I felt like a wildcat trying to molt, if you need a ferociously mixed metaphor.

I have a ritual going into a gong bath, and it includes turning off the ringer on my phone. On this night, as I lay on my mat and the gongs started to resonate, I couldn’t remember turning the ringer off. I knew I would never be able to relax if there was a chance that I would be That Person who left their ringer on. I got up and tiptoed to my bag. The ringer was off. I was finally able to start to let go.

This time, it didn’t feel like the gong brothers were holding back. They let us have it. I had this sensation of being bloated with negativity, and then all the extra weight from those bad feelings just bled out of me.

When I left, I was at peace.

I wish everyone who knows me could just know the me right after a gong bath. But that probably wouldn’t work because along with being incredibly chill of spirit, I’m also sensitive to light, sound, and glowing screens.

I ran errands for much of the next morning. I almost never spend a Saturday this way, and I could feel my social capital being spent on all the mini-interactions with strangers that I was subjecting myself to. A mechanic, a pharmacist, and two Lyft drivers later, I was afraid I would have nothing left for the reunion.

I spent some one-on-one time with Three, braiding her hair. I altered a piece of clothing I thought I might wear to the reunion (actually, I painted the inside of the pockets of a pair of pants. Then, it was too hot to wear them. I own my perfectionism). I gave myself a pedicure, and tried not to sweat too much in the heat wave that was sitting heavily over our area.

By the time I was leaving for the reunion, I had a bag bulky with things I knew I didn’t need, like my nice camera, which I realized after I got there was nearly dead anyway, a book I’m reading, and a sweater in case we were going to be somewhere with air conditioning (nope).

It was just me trying to control the uncontrollable. I knew I was handling the over-stimulation of the day so well because I was still chilled out after the gongs, but I didn’t know if I could drag the effects out for the rest of the day.

The drive to the reunion was beautiful. The valley where I grew up is a green bowl surrounded by hills, capped by a dome of blue sky. Wildflowers grew along the edges of the cracked pavement of the highway and I sang loudly to India Arie until my phone abruptly died.

I’d left early so I wouldn’t be rushed and might have a little time for nostalgia. Should I pay a surprise visit to a former classmate and friend who worked at a place on the way and who I knew wouldn’t be at the reunion? Should I visit the grave of a friend from a different school who’d died my junior year of high school?

I opted for a cemetery visit, and felt peace immediately about my choice. As I drove the windy country road towards the little cemetery, I let the GPS app on my phone to lead the way, but I intuitively knew where to go, even though I hadn’t been there since my family moved away after I graduated from high school.

I headed onto the right branch of the little looping road in the graveyard, up a small hill and parked, then walked past a big old tree to where the grave marker stood near the fence, overlooking fields and trees.

I greeted my friend silently. I sat down facing the grave marker, put on my headphones, set a timer for 12 minutes, because that was how long I had before I needed to leave to be on time to the reunion, and closed my eyes.

Sometimes meditations are for crying. I don’t usually know ahead of time, although I had teared up a few times on the drive to the cemetery. This one was an ugly cry intermingled with laughter.

I knew he was there with me, and he was his old self, with his same old sense of humor. I wondered silently near the end of the meditation if it would be ok to touch the grave marker to say goodbye, and heard, “Well, you’re already sitting on me, so I don’t know what difference it makes.”

I probably washed off all of my eye makeup crying, but by the time I stood up, said goodbye, and walked back to my car, I wasn’t feeling anxious about anything.

Sure, once I got there, there were a few moments of sadness and regret, over classmates I’d lost touch with but who hadn’t lost touch with each other.

Another classmate had been very sweet, but had gotten sucked into a plot to trick me in ninth grade that had broken my trust (in him and in humanity). I was sad to find that the trust was still broken, until he walked by, touched my shoulder, smiled and said hello, and told me he was glad to see me. I smiled back and said the same, and knew it was true.

Talking with different classmates, everyone I spoke to was satisfied with the trajectory on which their life had taken them. They were relaxed and content.

I felt deeply the camaraderie of hanging out with people who have shared stories. We swapped tales, and I heard the other side of stories for which I’d only known my own experience.

It took me back in time to when it felt like I had a way of discharging negativity – it wasn’t hard to stop off while driving somewhere and shout into an open field, roaring until the pain went away. Even if someone was in the car with me, it was more often than not a friend who would understand what I was doing.

Now, with urban life and a car frequently full of kids, there are fewer places to pull over and it feels harder to explain why mom needs to get out of the car and shout into the open air until she loses her voice.

The reunion left me feeling like I’m sadder, and more bitter and resentful, than I want to be. I would like to have a few less sharp edges, to come across as less militant. I hope my old friends knew that the way I was at the reunion was just the pain leaking out here and there and that they understood. I know at least a few of them did.

I was also reminded that in the minds of my classmates, I was a smart, creative girl who was up for adventure and did amazing projects – drawing, painting murals. I’m still that creative girl. She hasn’t been lost, but sometimes I forget that.

The same sadness that came and went in high school comes and goes now. I’ve gotten better at accepting it, but I still don’t think I’m better at what to do about it. I had more space as a teenager to feel and manage my emotions than I do now… at least, that’s the story I’m telling myself.

Sometimes,  if I crane my neck, I can see future me, cool as a cucumber, gliding through life with a ready smile. I’m wondering if that is too fantastic a dream, and will the real change happen when I can just be cool with me as I am, rough edges and all?

I’m working toward a future that allows both those possibilities. Perhaps the future will also include a remote place where I can make nature’s hair stand on end with my yawping, and maybe, just maybe, I will cobble together solutions that work until then in a balance that keeps me afloat.

The photo above was taken as I was leaving for one of my errands Saturday morning – Seven was making hilarious faces on the glass of the back door, and of course by the time I got my phone out to capture one of them, he was pushing me away, literally and figuratively.