Life is pain, Highness.

Sorry to steal one of my favorite Princess Bride quotes for the title. I just wanted to talk a little about painful emotions. I remember in high school, every emotion was on one side of the spectrum or the other. The highest highs, the lowest lows. Crush-O-the-Hour said hi to me after class, it's a great day! Crush-O-the-Hour didn't say hi after class, devastation and self-deprecating thoughts clouded the day. In college, that spectrum seemed to even out, still jogging from one side to the other if some guy asked me on a date, (emotional high), but if he asked out some other girl, you guessed it, devastation and but not-so-self-deprecating thoughts--I had grown up a little, see. I remember one break up, definitely the worst break up I had in college, that sent me reeling through the harsh and vivid high school emotions. Don't worry, I know for sure he won't be reading this. Yeah, it was that bad. We're not even friends on facebook, that's how bad it was. Anyway, I won't go through the details of the break up or how it happened, but I will say this: I died that day. A part of my heart shriveled up like a potato left in the pantry for a over a year. I was emotionally sick. Physically hurt. I didn't eat for three days. Well, I probably wandered into the kitchen and picked at something, but I certainly didn't eat any meals. My countenance was awful. If there had been any pictures taken at that time (thankfully there were none), I would've looked like I'd just escaped from out-patient surgery and felt just as bad. Flash forward to present time. I've not had any harrowing experiences since then. Those kind of emotions are for high school dramas and maybe a little in college right? I mean, nothings got me rattled in the last nine and a half years I've had of wedded bliss. Until a few months ago. I had a friend break up. If you don't know what a friend break up is, it's kind of like a boyfriend break up, only it's with a friend instead of a boy. Again, no details of why or how, but all those emotions I thought I'd left behind me in high school or even college, you know the sickening feeling, the flush of heat, the gut-wringing pain, were right back in my face. I thought due to my relatively conflict-free marriage that as I matured, those feelings weren't as intense. But I was wrong. Grief, pain, sorrow, loss, humiliation even weirdly enough, jealousy, all still hurt with the intensity of high school. Does it ever get any less painful to deal with those emotions in this human experience?

Comments

  1. Aw Amey, that stinks! To rip off my favorite Orson Scott Card quote, "That's life. It hurts, it's dirty, and it feels very, very good.” Oddly enough, that was the signature line on my emails during college. You are kidding about high school and college seeming to rip those sort of emotions out of us. I think most of the time I'm thinking about the second two things, I'd rather avoid dealing with the idea of hurt. But I don't think it ever gets less painful to deal with stuff. Especially with things like friends that we have developed a deep emotional attachment to, of course if we didn't develop that kind of attachment we'd miss out on all the great stuff too that came with it.

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  2. I think I thought it was more intense in high school because I let myself love more freely. I am much more guarded now, and I'm trying to get over that. I can't protect myself from all pain. And the hubbs aptly put, if you can't take the pain, you don't deserve the joy. Ever since the above mentioned college fall out, I've really put up a steel fence around my heart, loving only family members, essentially. But I'm tired of living a joyless life. Not that I want to get hurt, I hate emotional pain more than anything, but I also crave connection more than anything, too. And the price to pay for emotional connection is of course, the risk of pain.

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