Can we talk?  Seriously, are emotions a pain in the behind or what?!?  It’s amazing that something most people dismiss as just “feelings” can be so powerful, powerful enough to lift a person into the stratosphere or dump them into the deepest cave.  We tell people that they’re “too emotional” or “not emotional enough” based on how they react to  circumstances around them.  How I react to something and how someone else reacts can be completely different, based on the whole nature/nurture thing.  I just wish I could figure out how to not let emotions take over my life.

As a musician, I think I should be an emotional being.  After all, music elicits feelings, and hopefully I am able to transfer those emotions to my listeners/students, right?  If I watch a movie or read a book where something sad happens, I should be able to feel sad or even cry.  If they’re funny I should be able to laugh out loud until I can’t breathe.  Truth be told, I think I’m more of a cryer than a laugher.  I cry when I see or hear just about anything, whether it’s something terribly sad or something incredibly beautiful.  And I’m an UGLY cryer, so I try to avoid it like the plague, but then it builds up and I HAVE to cry and well, the ugly just gets worse.  Over the years, I’ve tried to just give in to the need to cry, just to avoid the build up.

For me personally, this whole crying thing is hard.  I was told as a child that I was “too sensitive” (whatever that means) and was laughed at when I cried.  I’m sure it was meant to be an affectionate laugh – I think.  As I tend to cry when things are beautiful as well, I found myself crying during a Christian concert once as I thought the message and the music itself was so beautiful and the man beside me actually said “if this makes you cry you’re not a very mature Christian”.  I took that to heart for a long time.  I think it made me a callous Christian for a long time.  I know now he was wrong.  But how awful to judge someone’s emotions like that.

The problem with emotions is when you CAN’T control them – they control you.  Literally.  Those times when you cry for absolutely no reason other than to cry and you can’t seem to stop.  Then people tell you that you must be depressed so you go to a physician who says, why yes, you are clinically depressed so here is a little white pill.  The pill kicks in and soon you are feeling very little emotion.  You are able to handle everything because everything is “fine”.  No real highs or lows, just “fine”.  It certainly makes things easier for those around you. After a while, you stop having dreams when you sleep, you stop feeling things when you hear music, you stop feeling things during big events in your life.  Things are managed to the point where you wonder if it’s even you anymore.  So you decide you would rather feel the emotion than to not feel the emotion.

Wow, so I’m feeling the emotions again and as they used to be, they feel a bit out of control.  I’m dreaming again but I’m also having nightmares again.  I’m crying again but I’m also fighting some of that depression again. But when I’m laughing, I’m really laughing and that’s really good.  I feel like me again, just not in control again. I’m not saying that medication isn’t a good thing, but I wonder if there’s maybe a better way to handle this, whether it’s through prayer or meditation or finding something simple like coloring again to relax and refocus.  Maybe I need to spend more time with people, doing things for others to take the attention off of myself.  It’s a work in progress, that’s for sure.

So yes, lately I’ve been trying to manage those emotional attacks that seem to take over my life.  I hope this doesn’t sound like it’s all about me, although some days when I’m feeling particularly sorry for myself and therefore really emotional, it is, but I also know that others struggle with this as well.  It’s hard for those who don’t struggle with this to understand and that’s ok. How could you?  You don’t have this emotional monster who rears it’s ugly head at the most inopportune moments and attacks you from within.  It’s a little like the movie Alien where right in the middle of a lovely dinner, this thing pushes its way through your stomach to interrupt everything.  Like a jack-in-the-box, you try to push it back in and cover it with the lid, hoping it won’t pop back up without warning and scare everyone.

But today is another day.  I’m finishing breakfast, watching the birds fight over the bird feeder and listening to them chirp and making plans for a lovely, productive day.  Hopefully a day where I don’t feel attacked again from within.