For the longest time I always felt that if I didn’t show feelings, then I was being brave. That if I wasn’t affected, then I was being courageous. That if I didn’t feel inside, then I could fully live out my life. That anytime feelings or emotions did come out that I had failed. That I needed to go back and build my walls thicker, taller, stronger, so that I could not be affected again.
But every time they would break. Every time I would eventually fail. It’s so counter-intuitive to me to begin to comprehend and understand that feelings are everything. They are what make us human. Being affected is what makes us connect, grow, empathize, understand, love. That living a life devoid of feelings and being affected is already being dead. What I thought was my defense mechanism to save me was actually killing me.
And yes sometimes, often times, being affected and feeling is so hard. It can take us to places maybe we never wanted to go, but there is no joy without sorrow. There is no true understanding of happiness without the brutal loss that also comes with life. I have known loss, and I never wanted to go back, but even in that memory of such loss is such happiness, such joy, such exuberance of life. There isn’t one without the other and to try to deny that is to float a path of in between, of no feeling, of not being affected, and then you are already dead.
I don’t know what the future holds, but I’m here now ready and willing to welcome it with open arms and a smile on my face or tears on my cheeks.