Sweet emotion.
I am very in tune with my emotions. I am also very passionate. There was a time when I turned off my emotions because I didn't want to feel anymore. That has long since passed, and I don't think it's healthy.
Everyone knows when they're happy, sad, angry or afraid. Those are very basic emotions. There are also very pure, very strong emotions that are easy to identify. Fury. Terror. Elation. There are more complicated emotions that are not so easily recognizable, or described. Yearning. Melancholy. Things that aren't happy or sad or anything in between. So how does someone so in tune with what she feels get so confused by an emotion?
This is no recent development. I can recall the first time it happened with perfect clarity. I was nine years old. My parents and I were driving to R.C. Willy's, a warehouse furniture store. As we were driving along an emptier stretch of the road, I noticed a car passing us and looked to see who was in it. There was a boy, about my age, sitting it the back seat. He had dark brown hair in a bowl cut, and slightly bulging eyes that usually come from an iodine deficiency. He was wearing a red tshirt and blue jeans. When I looked at him, there was this inexplicable... anticipation mixed with fear and a tinge of arousal in the pit of my stomach. I followed him around the store, trying to figure out what I was feeling. I never did get a handle on it, but part of it stayed with me for the rest of that day.
It came around again, same anticipation, same fear, same exhilaration when I was listening to a Newsboys song, "Elle G." when I was about thirteen, it didn't strike me until I was flipping through my year book from the Christian school I was currently attending. There was a girl, several years younger than I was, and her picture struck me. I put the song on repeat and stared, again trying to get a handle on this strange emotion. Eventually it just fades. I become to used to what I'm doing, to the song or her picture or something, and it just goes away.
I felt it next when I was in high school. Waiting for the bus in the dark, seeing the light start to come over the mountain. This time it was the same, but more peaceful. Relaxed. I stood, and watched the light move across the sky. It lasted all through first period, which was gym class, when I sat on the bleachers and watched the sun come up. I knew then, and thought to myself, I will remember this moment forever. I can remember how cold the bleachers were through my gym shorts, the smell of dew, the sounds of birds waking up, and people running on the track. The way the light filters through the sky, a ripple of sun streaming through the morning air.
It didn't happen again until a couple of years ago, driving back from a Christmas in Alabama. Tyler had come with us, and we were sitting in the backseat. We'd just left the St. Louis arch, and were stopped at an intersection. There was a three story high dilapidated brick building to our right. I stared for the longest time, I think I even brought it up with him (Did I?). It was like there was something in that building I was supposed to know. Some part of home, some sense of recognition that hit me. But because I didn't immediately recognize it, it went away. I wonder if I'll ever know. So now it comes again. In a dream. It's exactly the same as the first time, I'm talking to a boy, but he's a man now. They're not the same person, but they make me feel the same way. It's that feeling of... destiny, I suppose. Almost overpowering. I woke up, struggling to go back to sleep, to hold on. I lie awake in bed for a long time, listening to Josh play video games before he has to go to work, straining to remember everything. I'm pretty good with my dreams, I write them down, and I remember them well. But there was only residue from that emotion.
Goddammit. What's going on?
Everyone knows when they're happy, sad, angry or afraid. Those are very basic emotions. There are also very pure, very strong emotions that are easy to identify. Fury. Terror. Elation. There are more complicated emotions that are not so easily recognizable, or described. Yearning. Melancholy. Things that aren't happy or sad or anything in between. So how does someone so in tune with what she feels get so confused by an emotion?
This is no recent development. I can recall the first time it happened with perfect clarity. I was nine years old. My parents and I were driving to R.C. Willy's, a warehouse furniture store. As we were driving along an emptier stretch of the road, I noticed a car passing us and looked to see who was in it. There was a boy, about my age, sitting it the back seat. He had dark brown hair in a bowl cut, and slightly bulging eyes that usually come from an iodine deficiency. He was wearing a red tshirt and blue jeans. When I looked at him, there was this inexplicable... anticipation mixed with fear and a tinge of arousal in the pit of my stomach. I followed him around the store, trying to figure out what I was feeling. I never did get a handle on it, but part of it stayed with me for the rest of that day.
It came around again, same anticipation, same fear, same exhilaration when I was listening to a Newsboys song, "Elle G." when I was about thirteen, it didn't strike me until I was flipping through my year book from the Christian school I was currently attending. There was a girl, several years younger than I was, and her picture struck me. I put the song on repeat and stared, again trying to get a handle on this strange emotion. Eventually it just fades. I become to used to what I'm doing, to the song or her picture or something, and it just goes away.
I felt it next when I was in high school. Waiting for the bus in the dark, seeing the light start to come over the mountain. This time it was the same, but more peaceful. Relaxed. I stood, and watched the light move across the sky. It lasted all through first period, which was gym class, when I sat on the bleachers and watched the sun come up. I knew then, and thought to myself, I will remember this moment forever. I can remember how cold the bleachers were through my gym shorts, the smell of dew, the sounds of birds waking up, and people running on the track. The way the light filters through the sky, a ripple of sun streaming through the morning air.
It didn't happen again until a couple of years ago, driving back from a Christmas in Alabama. Tyler had come with us, and we were sitting in the backseat. We'd just left the St. Louis arch, and were stopped at an intersection. There was a three story high dilapidated brick building to our right. I stared for the longest time, I think I even brought it up with him (Did I?). It was like there was something in that building I was supposed to know. Some part of home, some sense of recognition that hit me. But because I didn't immediately recognize it, it went away. I wonder if I'll ever know. So now it comes again. In a dream. It's exactly the same as the first time, I'm talking to a boy, but he's a man now. They're not the same person, but they make me feel the same way. It's that feeling of... destiny, I suppose. Almost overpowering. I woke up, struggling to go back to sleep, to hold on. I lie awake in bed for a long time, listening to Josh play video games before he has to go to work, straining to remember everything. I'm pretty good with my dreams, I write them down, and I remember them well. But there was only residue from that emotion.
Goddammit. What's going on?