There are times as a feeler when my emotions overpower my common sense.
Once when I was a teenager, my parents bought my siblings and I cell phones. By whatever chance, all my siblings got their own phone plan, but I had to share a plan with my mom. I got upset and emotional about it. I yelled at my parents. Why? I guess I felt left out. My brothers and sister got their own plans, why did I have to share? It hurt my feelings.
Logically, what’s the difference? It didn’t really even matter. But my emotions didn’t allow me to see reason, and my feelings of being left out overpowered me. Afterward I felt guilty for being selfish.
Today something happened that caused me to feel left out. Logically, I knew I shouldn’t feel that way. I knew it was stupid, but my feelings overpowered me. I had a shitty afternoon at work and my defenses were weak. I felt like I was being selfish and childish, but I didn’t have the mental strength to overcome it. When I got home I had a mini emotional breakdown.
Part of this was triggered by the fact that I had a bad afternoon, but it can’t be explained completely by that. I don’t feel like thinking about it anymore right now.
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I’m learning that some people are harder to crack than others. Most people are willing to be a little vulnerable in order to make friends. Once they know that vulnerability is rewarding, they open up a little more to that person, then a little more, until they’re good friends.
To get to know someone, usually it means exposing yourself. Each step in a friendship means exposing yourself a little more. I think that every person has a emotional barrier that is the breaking point between friend and good friend. Probably there are lots of little and big barriers.
In one of my friendships, I feel like I’m stuck, but I want to go deeper. I’m starting to think that I have to reveal more of myself to learn less than I reveal. It’s frustrating. I’m starting to think that I need to make a big move to get anywhere. Maybe it’ll work; maybe not. But stagnancy is lame.
Why do I want to do this? I guess I see some of myself in them, and I want to help. Maybe I want to feel less alone. Maybe I want the rush of going out on a limb. I like solving puzzles, and this puzzle is difficult and somewhat personal.
I’m not sure if I’ll be able to get up the courage any time soon. Maybe I’ll decide it’s not worth it.
Posted in relationships |
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I’ve been getting over another cold thing for the past couple of days. It doesn’t seem as bad as the one I had a few weeks ago, so hopefully I’ll be over it in the next few days.
Today it occurred to me that I’m an adult. Not that I’d forgotten that fact; I guess I just haven’t consciously thought about it in a while. I was lying in bed, and I just happened to think about it.
I’m 26 years old. I’ve been supporting myself for three and a half years now. I can do whatever the hell I want to do (within reason). I could quit my job if I felt like it. I could go back to school. I could move away and start a new life somewhere. Not that I think doing any of those things is a good idea right now. But I could.
It’s sort of amazing what the comfort of a routine can do. Doing the expected. I went to college, graduated, and found a job. I like my job, so I keep doing it. It (almost) never occurs to me that something drastic will happen, and so I keep living my life. One day rolls into the next day, and time flies by. Things change incrementally most of the time.
But then again, I’m just saying that because most things are okay in my universe right now. In fact, they’ve only become that way very recently. My life has been filled with turmoil since I graduated. I’m merely experiencing a lull in the action. But how much turmoil could I really have gone through if I can just casually dismiss it now that things are okay for the moment? I don’t really have any well-formed conclusion to this train of thought; just thinking aloud.
Maybe with age comes the realization that life is hard, and that’s just the way it is. I feel like it’s impossible to live a certain amount of time and not come to that conclusion. If one accepts that truth, then the bumps in the road are expected, and it’s not that big of a deal anymore. The powers of fate and destiny aren’t somehow geared against one person specifically. Everyone is screwed.
We all have to go through the same crap. “The human condition.” Maybe that’s a cynical way to look at things. I also think it takes an extraordinary feat to not be cynical after a certain amount of time. But hey, we all do what we can with what we were given. It’s a cliché. The older I get, the more meaning I find in the stupid sayings I heard all the time as a kid.
In the last post I mentioned that I don’t feel the love from my group of friends all the time. That’s not really true at all, I decided. Everyone has their own way of showing love.
Tags: rambling, sick
Posted in introspect |
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I went to Virginia this year again with Matt and Catherine to see the Singletons/Kelderhouses/Taylors. It was great.
Their family is very unusual; they all love spending time together for days at a time. They have so much love for each other; one can’t help but feel loved just being around them. They touch me in a way that I doubt they even know about. I found myself fighting back tears multiple times while listening to their family play music together. My emotional walls broke down, and I learned things about myself.
God reaches me when I’m with them. I see the power of God’s blessing on them, and it makes me consider my own relationship with God.
A lot of the time in social situations, I try to be like a fly on the wall. Maybe I secretly feel like I have nothing to add. So it’s kind of odd when someone reaches out to me in a meaningful way that touches my heart, because I’m not used to it. When I go visit the Singletons, it feels like my spirit wakes up more than any other time. As good of friends that my group of friends is, I don’t feel the overflowing love like I do with Matt’s family.
“I never knew how empty was my soul, until it was filled.”
Matt and Catherine and I also had some really great conversations during the trips there and back. We talked about relationships and personalities and things that matter. I was able to say some things that have been on my mind for ages, and I learned things. More than anything, I enjoy connecting with another human being, and I feel like I did that this weekend. It empowers me.
It’s hard to know exactly how much and in what way you affect someone else’s life.
Tags: belonging, emotion, God
Posted in trip |
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