A Girl Reads a Conversation About the Appropriate-ness of Publicly Airing Ones Feelings

And promptly writes a blog post about airing her feelings.

Scott Simon of NPR is currently sitting vigil at his mother's beside, in the ICU of a Chicago hospital and tweeting about his experience. If what I am reading is correct, his mother is dying.

One of the websites I frequent linked to Simon's twitter feed and the subsequent conversation wandered into "this is totally inappropriate for him to do, he is an asshole / No he is not" territory. Most of the comments were deleted, thankfully, before I posted my point of view on the subject.

So I'm putting it here, this comment that I can not say because (ironically) it is too personal for me to share there.

I envy Scott Simon. I envy the freedom, whether granted by his mother or not, to openly talk about his participation in this painful journey. What a luxury he has, to send out into the universe the pain he is feeling and garner the support he needs to make it through to the other side.

I am not as fortunate. I am constrained, by the rules of decorum, to keep the pain and stress that I am feeling at witnessing my mother go through an illness that may very well kill her, to myself. In order to honor my parents wishes to keep this matter private, I can not talk about it. If I were to draw out the Venn Diagram between the people I am permitted to tell and the people who would be the best at giving me the support that I need, the overlap would be miniscule.

So I am glad that Scott Simon has the permission, even if he gave it to himself internally, to take the rest of us on his journey. May he and his mother find peace.