I'm So Disappointed, My Heart Hurts

*Does* everything happen for a reason? So hard to keep the faith right now. I'm so disappointed, my heart hurts. Hurts like an unwieldy water balloon sloshing around in my chest, bumping into my lungs and squeezing out the air in them. There was a moment of shock, a gaping hole of silence opening up as my ears absorbed the news and my brain began to process it. Then the wave of disappointment came crashing in and violently swept away the carefully nurtured sandcastle of hope and expectation I'd been building all these weeks, erased it like it had never been there. Now I know where all those clichéd metaphors come from, can physically feel the truth in each one: I feel crushed, I feel turned to stone, I feel about 3 inches tall, I feel squashed flat, I am walking around with a ball of lead in the pit of my stomach, there is a buzzing in my head and I can't seem to focus on what's in front of me, everything looks gloomier and there is no joy in Mudville anymore.

Sigh.

Big sigh.

Several more sighs, which may very possibly continue throughout the next few days every time the news occurs to me yet again and I keep working through the disappointment.

Just keep swimming, just keep swimming, just keep swimming...