Cleaning my shoes

I am not going to sit here and claim to be an Enlightened Human Being (tm). I have moments where negative emotions eat me alive and take over. Yes, I have to work through them. Some of them woke me up at 3am this morning. Bastards.
Poly people sometimes think that it is a bad thing to have negative emotions like jealousy, for example. I think it's not a bad thing, it's just an internal alarm that you need to step back and ask why that is happening. Suppressing it just makes it worse. Hiding it does not help. Ignoring it does not make it go away and certainly doesn't make it better.
Look at negative emotions as if they were cuts, sprains or broken bones. No one would walk around bleeding all over the place with a thumb hanging by a thread. If you have a serious cut, you would go to the hospital and get stitches. There would be antibiotics to clear any infections.
It's the same for negative emotions. They hurt, cause pain like a cut and your partners can administer emotional first aid by listening. They can help ease your pain by reassuring you, arranging things to reduce the chances of the emotion reoccurring. Hiding the hurt would be like walking around on a broken ankle. When one's in pain, it's hard to fully enjoy the glorious things around.
I came to this conclusion after a busy Saturday spent with the guys. They had an Atlanta Poly board meeting, we went to a meetup following that then went to Santacon (a pub crawl). On top of everything, we celebrated three years of being a triad.
At the last bar we went to, a Santa tossed feathers in the air which covered the floor. When I got home, I noticed there were feathers stuck to the soles of my shoes by heaven knows what gooey stuff. I was too tired to deal with it and left them for the morning.
My brain had other plans. Thoughts and emotions spun around my head, waking me up and sending me to the living room to listen to the Bloodhound Gang and upload pictures. I tried to ignore my emotions and the thoughts that woke me in the first place.
Then I looked at my shoes. Some things can't be put aside or ignored.
So I'm going to take my own advice and let my caring, supportive partners bandage the hurts.
Then I'm picking chicken feathers out of my Chucks.