I don't know when it happened...
I have sincerely looked back and can't pinpoint the exact moment it happened...
... I FEEL LIKE EMOTIONS ARE WEAKNESSES!!!
I sincerely believe that I am a good enough friend. I say good enough because although I am caring, compassionate, dependable and almost always available... I firmly believe in self-preservation and that belief sometimes keeps me from going the extra mile sometimes. What most don't realize is that I can be all of the fore mentioned adjectives without allowing myself to feel more than I'm willing to feel.
Well with every year I get older and I'm beginning to realize that might be just a tad problematic.
I operate as if I have very little emotions... not to be confused with me thinking that I have very little feelings... On the contrary, most times I feel so much that I have to repress most of it to keep from burdening others with them. As a result I keep myself from expressing almost all feelings that should be expressed.
This philosophy puts a strain on the relationships that I have... whether they are platonic or romantic...
I found myself writing the longest email of my life recently because after 6 years I was spilling out everything that has ever hurt/bothered/annoyed/gotten on my nerves out after almost a year of being probed/pushed/pressed to share my feelings... Why did it have to come to a point where our friendship was on the line for me to open up???
Frankly I don't know... I sincerely wish I could answer that... and Now that I've noticed it in this relationship I can't help but see patterns in all my other relationships.
I can tell you that it annoys me more than anything that I'm realizing this because I usually fix PROBLEMS to the best of my abilities but I'm not really sure this one is one that I even WANT to fix...
Life has been good so far why change it?
hmm interesting post! well i hope you got what you have been searching for through that email!
ReplyDeletewith new information/realizations comes inherant responsibility- not necessarily to anyone else, but to yourself. yes, like has been good the way things were, however it seems that now youve begun uncovering some new possibilities and understanding of the way things have always been. if it still sits well with you, then yeah, no need to change. but if it begins to tug at you as if there is a need for change, you probably won't be able to ignore that for too long. or maybe you can if you wanted to...
ReplyDeleteWriting is supposed to be therapeutic, which is probably why your email ended up being 6 pages from pent up frustrations. Although it doesn't bother you now, it may be worth expressing how you feel to people more often. Many times it's not in what you say but how you say things that will affect how people respond. At the end of the day if you had expressed those feelings sooner, maybe your friendship wouldn't have been on the line and maybe your letter wouldn't have been 6 pages long. But if you're not comfortable with expressing your emotions out right... I always find writing them helps either directly to the person or just writing to vent for yourself and maybe saving the letters to give to the person should it reach a breaking point where you feel they need to know.
ReplyDeleteI definitely understand how it feels to find yourself spilling it after keeping it in for a long time. Do you think it's really healthiest for you (not just your relationships) to keep it all in? I doubt it. I had a great aunt who insisted keeping her feelings in caused her to have an aneurism. I'm sure that she was being extreme but maybe a few more regular releases might be a good idea I can see how it's a defense mechanism but for how long?? Feeling is a freedom that you owe to yourself.
ReplyDelete