Nature shows are amazing. I have learned about animals I never knew existed in places I still can’t pronounce. I’ve watched sloths elegantly fording the river, monkeys with their high-flying antics in the trees, sea turtles emerging from the beach and bolting for water. It’s mesmerizing and leaves me filled with wonder at this incredible world we live in! I absolutely love it!
Except when I don’t.
You see, the sloths have crossed the river for nothing – the territory is spoken for already. The monkey’s habitat is disappearing because of humans, and those cute little turtles are easy snacks for seagulls and sly crabs lying in wait. (Those rascals!)
Yes, this stuff bothers me. I feel things deeply – always kind of have.
When I was growing up, I cried about throwing away my old tennis shoes. Albeit broken and ill-fitting, we’d been on so many adventures together! I couldn’t just toss those memories aside! The day my alarm clock died, I sobbed for an hour knowing it had said “Good morning!” to me every day for the last 10 years. And my car? I couldn’t bear to take it to the dump myself, but I did save the Dodge Aspen nameplate for my memory box.
Yes, I am sentimental. And emotional. But that is part of what makes me into….me.
Recently, my husband was talking me through a hard situation with a friend. There had been a misunderstanding that was still in my mind unresolved. I spent the weekend pretty heavy-hearted and almost distressed at times.
“I hate the way I take things so hard! I wish I just didn’t feel everything so deeply!” I spouted out to him, tears fighting their way down my cheeks against my will.
“But then you wouldn’t be you. And I like that part of you.”
You see, I don’t just feel sadness exponentially; I feel EVERY emotion like a tidal wave – good and bad. When I see a sunset that words fail to describe, it is the most amazing sunset I have ever seen. When my son donned his baseball uniform for the first time and repeatedly thanked me for signing him up, I felt like I loved him more than I ever had before. And when my son reached his goal for the honor roll, overcoming anxiety about school and homework, it’s the proudest I have ever felt. Good and bad together, everything is deep, raw and amplified beyond “normal” parameters.
I’m not gonna lie, it’s hard opening up a vein all the time – it’s absolutely exhausting! I feel like I might bleed out at any moment, from pure joy or devastating agony. (Joy is definitely my preference.) But if I am unwilling to feel the bad at its’ worst, I also can’t feel the good at its’ best. You can’t choose to feel one emotion and not another, they are a tandem – like coffee and creamer, chips and guac, sunshine and sunglasses.
Let me give an example: When I started learning to bake, I thought it was ridiculous to put salt in cookies. It didn’t make sense to me, so I left it out. As it turns out’ the salt makes the sweet taste better; it accents the flavor with a new spectrum of richness and depth. Ever try salted chocolate? Or salted caramel ice cream? Case and point. Who’d have thought a little salt could do all that?
Sometimes the sadness, the deep feels, the fighting of hard emotions provides a backdrop so that joy can be tasted more fully, and contentment can be understood on a level previously undiscovered.
So, friends, when you’re adding another little one to the family, I will jump and down (literally) with excitement, and when I am hurt, it will likely take me longer to get over it than most. But since I can’t have one without the other, I choose both. Because that’s me.
And I am learning to be okay with that.
