How does that make you FEEL?

[paperflowers]

I should have been scared. But is it even possible for an eight year old to comprehend what death is? I could have been scared. Truthfully, I don't even know if I was. I can't remember being an eight year old. Or a nine year old. I remember my 8th birthday party. New Kids on the block. A new bike that I would come to hate because it wasn't

Comments

[guitargrrl]

I've been taking these higher level psychology courses, so I'm learning more than the usual "bipolar/manic/anxiety" stuff that is all they ever teach us. So, one of my classes is social psychology and relating and the other is child development. In these classes we are learning that there are 3 points in your life where you are "supposed" to be self centered and not really 'feel' anything. One is when you're a child- up until about age 10 or 11. Then you have a few good years, and then you become selfish again in your mid teenage years. Then you become that way again in your elderly years. So, by not feeling anything at such a young age, it's normal (haha! i just called you normal!) really, because kids in that phase are thinking about bikes and fun and dolls and slumber parties. They have no real sense of death or anything to gauge it by, to KNOW how to feel

[paperflowers]

Don't apologize to me for rambling. Rambling is good in my book

[jade]

i was also about 9 when my grandma died, and i was extremely close with her.....the way you write how you felt when your mom was sick/dying was what i was going through too when my they told me grandma had died. the way you write it, i imagine it must be how my brother felt at the time when our mom died, and he was only 7...it breaks my heart to think that my brother missed out on so many years of my mom...i sometimes think he's luckier because now he's 15 and he only knows what it's like to be with our step dad. he doesn't even really remember our mom. that makes me sad when i think about it, which i hardly ever do, because i made myself think along the way that to not feel is more precious than feeling. at least i can crawl out my friggin bed, unlike before...
maybe what you feel with this boy isn't apathy...maybe for whatever reason you are starting to adjust to yourself and life, and you're remembering what it was like to intensely feel, and you think it can't be true feelings unless you feel it strongly like it was before. i'

[paperflowers]

I like mouthfuls! haha. Thanks for the comment, Jade.
there is a certain romance to feeling things so intensely, be it happy or sad.
Wow. I think you might be right. I've never thought about this this way because I've always identified myself as someone who feels things intensely....so I feel like somethings WRONG if I'm not. This whole comment was like a lightbulb in my head - thank you.

My brother was 7 too. He's a well adjusted, social, outgoing stunning man now. I tend to think he was lucky that way too.