I learned how to build home on the topography of my father’s emotions between wandering the woods and chocolate chip cookie making. He was a man still working through the rubble of his own upbringing and so he brought me up in the crowded space between his own tears. I learned to read him the way sailor’s read the stars, the clouds, and the sea. I learned to sail him like he was the only ocean I could ever love. I tried to learn the words that could bring us both home.
He taught me everything I know about emotions and feeling. “Don’t bottle them up and stuff them in.” he’d say, “They’ll always find you because they are not the sort of things that fade unless you face them.” So while he told me not to keep them in, I resolved to be better than that. I chose, instead, to keep them always out.
It took years for me to figure out that short cuts are just longer ways to the same place for those who want to put off confrontation until it hits you from behind, knocks the wind out of you, and demands your silent attention. It may be the shortest distance between two places; but there are no places or paths for lessons like love, forgiveness, and getting over yourself. Those are long roads you have to walk yourself. Do not skip a step or you may miss it altogether.
It took me even longer to realize that sometimes the act of sorrow is all you have to give. There are no wrong ways to feel, just wrong ways to cope with the feeling. Still I forget and so I say again, there are no wrong ways to feel.
I have now been brought up as far as anyone else can bring me. I do not always feel the things I know. And I do not always understand the things I feel. And yet, the longer I spend trying to feel truth and questioning the why’s and the how’s of feeling, the more I stand by that statement. There are no wrong ways to feel... but my emotions are often malnourished, ignorant, and a little disconnected.
The struggle is to bring all of me into agreement. The struggle is to learn my own coastlines, correct my compass, and learn to sail a new sea. The struggle is to connect and educate all of my emotions in the hope that the daughter I do not yet know if I will have will never have to try so hard to ride my waves, weather my storms, and bring me home.
He taught me everything I know about emotions and feeling. “Don’t bottle them up and stuff them in.” he’d say, “They’ll always find you because they are not the sort of things that fade unless you face them.” So while he told me not to keep them in, I resolved to be better than that. I chose, instead, to keep them always out.
It took years for me to figure out that short cuts are just longer ways to the same place for those who want to put off confrontation until it hits you from behind, knocks the wind out of you, and demands your silent attention. It may be the shortest distance between two places; but there are no places or paths for lessons like love, forgiveness, and getting over yourself. Those are long roads you have to walk yourself. Do not skip a step or you may miss it altogether.
It took me even longer to realize that sometimes the act of sorrow is all you have to give. There are no wrong ways to feel, just wrong ways to cope with the feeling. Still I forget and so I say again, there are no wrong ways to feel.
I have now been brought up as far as anyone else can bring me. I do not always feel the things I know. And I do not always understand the things I feel. And yet, the longer I spend trying to feel truth and questioning the why’s and the how’s of feeling, the more I stand by that statement. There are no wrong ways to feel... but my emotions are often malnourished, ignorant, and a little disconnected.
The struggle is to bring all of me into agreement. The struggle is to learn my own coastlines, correct my compass, and learn to sail a new sea. The struggle is to connect and educate all of my emotions in the hope that the daughter I do not yet know if I will have will never have to try so hard to ride my waves, weather my storms, and bring me home.
