feelings nom messed up 070325 ... tender_square "i keep thinking that i feel like a mess and that's me judging what i'm feeling, like it's not tidy enough, not defined enough, not clean enough, not something so easy to put away. why do i expect these feelings to be like that? maybe i'm angry because i can't control them they i want to. because to control would be to master over them, to use that will and make myself move on." 230326 ... flux never hide your own feelings for the sake of someone else's feelings (exception: when doing so might be danger). it rarely works out, and when you can do this confidently, things might get more interesting 260710 ... raze i used to either preface or follow the expression of whatever i was feeling by saying, "i'm sure most people would find this ridiculous," until my dad said, "you're not most people. your feelings are your feelings, and they're valid." i don't think i can even classify that as good_advice. it was more like a life lesson. now, instead of trying to defend what i feel to a nonexistent audience when i'm sad or baffled or stung by something, i just try to sit with it and let it be. 260711 ... ovenbird In the days before my wedding my mother pulled my soon-to-be husband aside and said, “You know she feels EVERYTHING, right? There’s nothing that isn’t as big as the universe.” I’m not sure if it was meant as advice or a warning. Maybe both. The statement was true, if lacking nuance. I DO feel everything, as if my sensory systems have all been cross-wired with my emotional engines. I tend to fall in love with things in ways that other people find completely perplexing. Right now I’m in love with the bumblebees nesting in my back yard. I worry about them. I listen for their soft subterranean hum. I experience profound anxiety knowing that the fencing company will be coming back soon to install a fence post right next to their current home. I experience anticipatory grief knowing that the autumn will claim their lives. And when their hive goes silent I will cry. Every day is like this, exhausting and consuming, beautiful and brutal. It’s lonely. Over and over I tell the story of what I feel and ask, hopeful, “do you understand?” And almost no one does. They look at me with amusement or confusion or a burgeoning fear. Then they find someone else to talk to. 260712 what's it to you? who go blather from