Screaming on the Inside

Have you ever wondered what it is like to scream on the inside?  There are several memes out there that cover this succulently.  However I have a story that illustrates it beautiful for me.  

I am visiting with my brothers family for an early Christmas.  My brothers, oldest daughter, Hannah and I are doing some female bonding by cleaning the impurities out of our pours with a clay face mask. I don’t normally partake in face masks all that often and after having the middle child, Hailey practice her make skills on my face, cleaning impurities seemed like a really good idea.  (My eyeshadow reached my eyebrows in a shocking 80’s blue and I am pretty sure the she tried to scrub the foundation into my skin to make it match.)

Hannah  pulled out the heavy duty clay mask (Aztec Secret) to dig everything out of my pours, because even after cleaning my face, I still felt like I was wearing make up.  Despite my trepidation about the advertising, Hannah assured me that she had used this several times, and the pulsating was normal.   I worry about things that advertise pulsation. 

 

Like with any mask, as it dries my nose will inevitably begin to itch. And then my face began to tighten, and then tighten some more where it looked like I was scowling because I couldn’t move my face.  My cheeks couldn’t move, my forehead was stuck in place and you don’t realize how much you move your nose, until you can’t.  And yes, the mask pulsates slightly. Or it was all the blood rushing to my nose. I am not sure.  

It comes time to remove the mask. Now, we have to be quiet, because the youngest is sleeping, and my sister in law has promised death to us if we woke him up. Hannah and I are in the bathroom getting ready to warm compress the mask off or scrub the dickens out of our faces when it happens. I had to sneeze.  I went from not being able to move my face at all, to moving it all at once as I silently sneezed. I know what agony feels like. Every nerve ending in my faced screamed “Witness Me”as if it was on Fury Road as it went through all the contortions involved with a sneeze.  

Hannah stood amazed. The silent scream was in my eyes.   Now, whenever I think about screaming on the inside, I think about that feeling.