the blessing of emotion.

 

lately i have been feeling numb.

like i am simply navigating the line of tasks ahead of me. one at a time.

this week i have felt unusually touchy. sometimes i felt like crying. and sometimes i felt like dancing. 

it's called pms, actually.

but this time i like it. because i'm feeling things.

today i was walking with one of my very good friends. (as much as he drives me absolutely crazy, i really do love him.)

and he asked me to tell him my story.

(you see, he's a talker, and i usually just listen to him. he doesn't know much about me, despite the fact that we've been friends for quite some time.)

first of all, i don't easily talk. i'm good at responding to questions, but i can't usually just lay it all out there without being requested to. 

second of all, it kind of surprised me that he asked.

third of all, i was very surprised with how much i just said. i just talked. and talked. 

i told him the story, minus a lot of details. the bare bones of it really.

i took big breaths as i spoke. because all the emptiness i used to feel came back.
i haven't talked about any of that for a very long time. but it's still very real.
and he listened and he said goodbye.
i got in my car to drive home and i listened to damien rice's album 'o'.
it's very full of emotion too.
i drove home and i felt empty and sad. and it hurt. but i felt so grateful to be able to feel it.
to feel my heart moving all throughout my body. and my heavy eyelids. and deep breaths.
i have never felt so grateful to be sad.
it wasn't a teary kind of sad.
those of you who have experienced loss understand.
it's a simultaneous emptiness and fullness of heart.
the familiarity of grief. but the closeness of love.
and then yesterday i talked with two other friends. about the same thing, but about my feelings about it. and even though this boy doesn't know the details of my story like the first does, he knows how i feel about it. he already knows me better than a lot of people.
and this is when a realized a truth. an important one.
you can tell somebody facts and stories all you want. but they will never really know you until they know how you feel about it.
emotion is a blessing because it means we're alive.
it's not something we should be afraid of sharing with people.
no one will ever know us unless we show it. we are human because we feel, and our relationships are based on the connection of emotions.
every once in a while you find someone who either understands how you feel or is able to accept how you feel.
i know nearly every small fact about the first friend i talked to. and i know nearly nothing about the other. it's very surprising that the second knows me much better than the first now.
in this world where faux friendships have blurred the line of trust and love, there are very few people who really know us. i think it's important to allow people that experience, and to allow it to yourself as well.
sometimes it's easy to use stoicism as a shield.
but i think that the only way to heal is to feel.

fear is a friend that's misunderstood, but i know the heart of life is good.

love, hannah.