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There is nothing wrong with emotions. I feel the need to say this, to speak it, to know it, because it seems that so often emotion is devalued in our society. The feelings of joy and contentment are elevated and that's what people are supposed to want to feel all of the time. On days that it rains outside my eyes are drawn to the earth, muddy and sunken with moisture, and I too feel like I'd like to let out the same sort of wetness from my own eyes. Funny that the metaphors we often use about rain in culture is that rain is symbolic of the heavens crying- and others see rain as cleansing- rain is rain but every-day ordinary things can stir up emotions that we didn't think it would.
I don't think there is anything wrong with crying. There is also nothing wrong with being depressed....REM's song 'everybody hurts' is a song which describes that we all feel sorrow and hurt and we all at times are depressed. It's important not to load our bodies up with junk to try to get past the pain and sometimes to feel it.
I know that when I have had strong emotions, I can only explain it as something that was overwhelming in every aspect. The one thing that caused me grief seemed to push out all of my other thoughts. For a moment, I felt like there were no other thoughts to be had. When you are focused on one thought so deeply, and I have only experienced this truly with sorrow- you are unable to have the whirring of the back of your mind which has concerns about your finances, your job, your life, your family your children and what you need to get done on that to-do list. The world stops and all you can think about is that one thing. It is almost very meditative. I can now recognize when others go through this pain and I could not before because I'd never had it first-hand. I could see they were in pain, but the appearance of it looked much like a flu rather than actually what was going on. The voice lowers and gets raspy and monotone. The person may look like they just woke up, or when you speak to them you just feel that grogginess. You know what that is. It's the sorrow. Sometimes you'll cry. Cry, and cry, and cry, and stop. So suddenly. You feel bad because you can't cry but then you think you might be getting over it and then it's progress. But then you cry again- triggered over completely irrelevant things. After a while no more tears can well up within you and you're left with this hollow empty feeling of wanting to express that emotion but you no longer have the tears left in the world to do so. There is this gray, ashy feeling that comes with that, your mind is still blank like someone wiped it down and left only one thought: the thought of your grief, and suddenly you know what you need to do. Everything seems so clear in those moments. You know what you feel and why you feel that way, and you know what you have to do to make it out alive. Your mind begins to drift to other things, like your past and what you want in the future....a brutal reality and awakening, thinking in a way you were never capable of thinking of because your thoughts were clogged up with all of the everyday fluff that we live through again and again. But now, with that empty mind, you think and reflect, you ponder, you think and reflect again and again until you think you've made a revelation. Later, when the haze is gone and you are back to functioning- you realize those things you thought so clearly, that seemed so clear, were blinded with hysteria. But it's a unique place. A place that you can't go to everyday, a place that breaks you down and forces yourself to build you back up. That is emotion.
I have also experienced short burst of extreme happiness. An event takes place that you have been waiting for all of your life, or so it feels like it. It feels like in your chest, you are going to explode- but it is such a wonderful exploding feeling. You smile at everyone and you want to spread that joy. You want to tell everyone what has happened. Even if you don't get what you want- even if something bad goes wrong and you know this won't last- you think the memory of it happening with last you a lifetime and nothing can rain down on your glee. Nothing. Honestly nothing can. The bliss for me lasted but a day but it was this bliss that ,upon thinking of it weeks after, still gave my stomach flips. I still sometimes smile about it. It's that dream you wake up from and you try to go back to sleep to get a glimpse of it, but can't, and are left with only that one sliver that still gives you warmth and glowing skin on the outside.
I have felt so many emotions in my lifetime and it's not half as long as the lifetime as most.
There is nothing wrong with emotions, or thinking with them...there is nothing wrong with feeling emotions and sometimes the rawest display of emotions holds the most truth. The most elegance. Emotions are healthy for human beings- they are there and cannot be controlled. Thinking is good in making decisions and rationalizing them out for the final progress but feelings are what prompt us to make those decisions and conclusions. Behind all actions are feelings, even if they are not rightly present. We feel something all moments of the day even if we don't think of it or put a finger on it. Those slow-moving gentle emotions that sway us morning to sunset are hard to remember because they do not come with the thrashing and beating of the extremities of rage, loss, and defeat. But they are all valid, and shouldn't be berated. If others cannot see the validity in our feelings then we should validate them ourselves.
I keep a journal. I don't write in it every day- and when I use it I don't even write- it is an art journal. But when I do use it, I use my emotions, it is a vent, sometimes. Emotion is healthy for all personalities types. Every man, every woman, every child. Emotion is there, it exists. No one can feel less. No one is number than another. Like love, there is not a limited amount of feeling it is a maximum of 3 feelings a day, nor is the intensity ever filtered per person. We are all capable of feeling like another person feels, and will, at some point or another. Maybe my sadness today is not your sadness of tomorrow...they are different...but do not tell me I am incapable of feeling such sadness. Perhaps my grief does not compare to your joy but one day I do have such an experience. I am not incapable of feeling. Neither are you. We will all have our ups, our downs.
But this is emotion.
Emotion.
