Oh, feelings.

Growing up I found myself as a pretty emotional kid. I would cry frequently and my aunts and uncles would often mention that at family gatherings. Was it a bad thing or a good thing? I don’t really know. Did it lead to bullying sometimes? Yes. Did it allow me to grow closer to kids my age? I don’t know. Did it allow me to learn how to express them in a meaningful way? I’d like to think so. I’m 21 years old now. Just a man figuring life out. Looking back I think being emotional still presents both pros and cons. Memories and current experiences continue to influence this thought. Let me share one.

I remember vividly being in the 6th grade when a rumor went around about a young girl who had a playful crush on me. She wasn’t the most outgoing or popular girl and lots of times I would get teased about it because other kids found it funny. One day in art class I got fed up with one of my buddies and told him to stop because I quote, “don’t like her and think she is ugly”. It was a statement made out of pure emotion only because I figured it would make them stop. Little did I know, that girl was only a couple of chairs away listening to our conversation. 

I went home that day with a pit in my stomach. Walking into the kitchen I sat up on the counter and started to cry because I know she had overheard me. I felt both guilt and shame for what I had said. The next day I went into school and asked my teacher if she could pull us both out of the class at some point during the day so I could formally apologize to her, I felt so bad. My teacher, an amazing woman, reluctantly agreed to help me out. I made things right that day. 

I find that memory to be such a random moment of strong feelings in my life. It was a time when emotion pushed me to act a certain way, leading to the feeling of guilt, and reluctantly a soft warming feeling of forgiveness. I think most people experiences these stages of feeling all at different levels, and life experiences definitely impact those different stages. By the end of middle school I was a completely different kid than I was that year in 6th grade. From a combinations of maturity, exposure to real world problems, and dealing with other kids my age, my ability to actually feeling deeply changed. In fact, it got worse. I numbed out. 

I’m 21 years old now, learning how to communicate with my family as an adult. It’s hard.  Especially as a man. Societal expectations make it taboo for men to have deep feelings. Personally, it has been difficult for me to experience, more so express, them since that 6th grade moment. So, how do you heal that? It’s something I am definitely working on.