To Feel or Not to Feel

It’s a funny thing, how we learn to adapt and deal with the world around us. It’s true that this is an importation skill of survival and can often serve us well. But sometimes the ways we learn to cope are as unhealthy as the thing we are trying to protect ourselves from.

At least that has been a discovery I made about myself recently. Last week I had an interview for a job (I did not get it, but that is another blog post for another day). It was an event leading up to the interview that made me take a hard look at how I have been dealing with my life right now, and quite frankly it rattled me.

I was having dinner with my uncle the night before I was scheduled to go try to sell myself in that awkward way we do to get a piece of that economic pie. It was dinner during this the calm and pleasant dinner conversation that I just broke down. I cried in the middle of a restaurant in West Hollywood. I was mortified.

The thing is I couldn’t really pin point exactly what the catalyst was. It was like a damn had broke and this flood of emotion just came over me and there was no way to stop it.

I realized that it was not just nerves about the impending interview (although that definitely was a part of it) but actually it was a cocktail of emotions I have been suppressing for months. Between stressing about my post graduate life, and a significant chapter of poor health I had dealt with it was overwhelming on-slot of crud. But instead of dealing with it as it came I swallowed it down.

So why did I do this? Well I think it is because I have spent so much of my life in heightened states of stress and anxiety. And I have done lots of work to not let those intense destructive emotions overwhelm my life. But I think somewhere along the way I overcorrected. I have got to a place in my life were I just try not to feel at all. I think subconsciously I have convinced myself that if I feel any sort of negative or uncomfortable emotion than I am backsliding.

The thing is though, that I am going through a stressful transition in my life. And it is ok to honor those emotions that I will inevitably feel in this chapter. As my uncle so wisely put it “how quaint you’re being human”. I could not help but laugh the truth is it is okay to feel, it is human and as long as it does not stop my forward motion then it is a vital reminder of existence.

Weekend

It was one of those weekends. It was one of those reaffirming powerful kind of weekends that are filled with lots of family and friends.

It's so easy get caught up in the stress of every day life. I for one spend so much time going through the motions of my day-to-day existence that I often forget about the love and support that is the foundation of who I am.

But this weekend I got to spend some quality time with some of the people who matter most to me. 

We gathered together to celebrate the birthday of my sister and one of our dear uncles. So many family members came, and friends who are so close the might as well be family.

We don’t always get to spend time together, but there is something really beautiful about the moments that we take time out of our often-separate solitary lives to acknowledge our connection. I find these times encouraging and they give me the strength to go back into the life I am trying to create for myself. 

Sister Friend

I don’t remember a life without her.  I was only thirteen months and two days old when they brought my baby sister home. They say that the first few months of her life I tried to sit on her head, perhaps I was trying to get rid of this little creature that was taking away my privilege of being the one and only baby of the house.

But I don’t really remember my days as an only child. My earliest memories involve my sister, of being part of a pair. When we were little girls’ people would sometimes confuse us for twins (though we didn’t look alike, but our mother did dress us in matching clothes… so I’m sure that had something to do with it), Intensifying this pair-ness I was held back and did my first grade year twice. So from my second year of first grade made it so that my kid sister and I were in the same grade… we graduated high school together. 

Our journey was a very shared one, and continues to be so. There were many times growing up that we had issues with fighting and sibling rivalry. Being in the same grade, sharing friends, and being completely different personality types, head butting was to be expected.

But as I have gotten older, I am continuously amazed at how lucky I am to be apart of this pair. I know without a shadow of a doubt that my sister has my back, and I have hers.  She is there to give me a pep talk in my dark hours, and a swift kick in the pants when I don’t want it (but I do need it).

I know that not everyone has this close kind of relationship with their siblings, but I do and for that I am more grateful then just the mussing on this silly blog of mine can express.

We don’t always see the world the same way, but that’s okay, we give each other often a much-needed different perspective. 

At the end of the day my sister and I are a team, and we are friends and really what more could I ask for?