Emotions

I'm a very emotional person.

I feel emotions very strongly.  And very often.  You see, my emotions aren't only affected by the things happening around me, I also have emotional responses to things that I imagine.  And I don't only feel my own emotions, when I am around other people I subconsciously absorb their emotions too.  And I can absorb emotions from movies and other media too, as if I was living it.  As a result, my life feels like it is rather like a roller-coaster of ups and downs, which can be quite exhausting.

In any given day I can feel depressed about something that isn't going well, angry because of something hurtful that someone said, happy that I was able to get lots done during the baby's nap, devastated because of some tragedy I saw in a news article, frustrated because Jesse was frustrated about something, stressed because a character in a movie I watched made a stupid mistake, excited because I heard from a friend that they did well in an exam, and grief-stricken because I imagined what it would be like to live through some sort of tragedy involving death and destruction.

And the thing with many emotions is that they hurt.  It's painful to feel so deeply.

So I figure out ways to limit it.  I rarely watch new movies so that I don't have to "live" through more stress and tragedy.  I don't watch the news or read the paper.  I'm trying to learn how to not take on the emotions of the people around me.

Something I didn't realize is that I also built a kind of wall around myself.  This was a surprising realization, since I prided myself in being personable and genuine and open with people.  I was those things, but apparently only to a certain point.  I wanted to protect myself, because when you are very close to people, it's so much easier to get hurt.  And it's very hard to say goodbye.

This past week has been very challenging.

Our baby had a sinus infection, so he was feverish and grumpy and not sleeping well.  At the same time we were trying to get ready for going on our family vacation, which included having some Christmas things ready to send out to Ontario, as well as cleaning and baking and packing.  And we discovered that there was black mold growing in our closet.  And we had to say goodbye to Steve.

Yes, "Uncle" Steve is moving out.  It's for a good reason though - he got his dream job!  And we are very excited for him.  But that means that he can't live with us anymore.

That's what made me notice the whole wall thing.  Because it has been a very long time since I have been so sad to say goodbye to someone.  It's like I've always been thinking in the back of my mind, "Care about people, but don't care TOO much, because then they will leave and it will be very sad".  But somehow Steve got past that wall.  He's a part of our family, and we care about him a lot.  So I'm sad.  But at the same time I am realizing that it's good to be sad, to care about someone enough that it hurts when they leave.

It's easy to equate pain with bad.  We don't like feeling pain, and we do what we can to avoid it.  So when emotions are causing us pain, it is easy to assume that they are bad.  But I have to remind myself that emotions are actually a good and necessary part of life.  Even the so-called "negative" emotions.

I think that the movie Inside Out does a really good job of portraying the way that each of the emotions has a purpose.  In Inside Out the personified emotions have a hard time accepting Sadness, just like many of us would rather not feel sad.  But along with the characters of Inside Out, we need to learn to value all of our emotions and learn what they are trying to tell us about what is important to us and how we are being affected by what is going on around us.

So I am continuing to learn to accept my emotions, even the ones that hurt.  To live life fully, there is risk - risk of getting hurt, but I am learning that it is worth it.