When I get filled up with any emotion I have to sit down and make myself write. Anger, sadness, monumental happiness, excitement, whatever the emotion – I need to write it down. It needs to be tangible. It needs to go somewhere outside of me before it overtakes me completely.
Someone once told me I feel too much; others call it an “artistic temperament” or “she’s just extra sensitive.” Both sound like some sort of disorder, some abnormality that I should correct to be more socially accepted or maybe just less crazy. But I can’t help it. Feeling is my way of being. Feeling is how I understand other people and how I come to grips with the world.
And right now I’m feeling angry. I wish I could harness anger into a more productive emotion, but I can’t channel Gandhi every day of the week. So I sit with it. I work my way around this emotion. I slam the keyboard with extra enthusiasm. I pick away at my own brain to try to determine if there is any justifiable reason for me to be feeling this way. Most of the time there isn’t. Most of the time when I allow myself to indulge in feelings like anger I immediately feel guilty because I know I should only be indulging in feelings of gratitude. But sometimes I just don’t get it. Sometimes I get so tired of trying to understand, and so tired of trusting other people. I forget that my way of being is not the status quo. That everyone feels differently, experiences differently, loves differently. That everyone has different motives, that everyone is fighting different battles. Why do we make things so difficult?
And don’t even get me started on Syria…
