My stomach hurts all day like it did the last time my heart broke. All too familiar. Throat all swelled up. Heavy chest. It's so physical. And I find it so interesting. So interesting that instead of letting it swallow me whole like the last time my heart broke, I find myself concentrating so that my mind is outside my body and I breathe just so I can feel the physical-ness of it. It's like loss. Or grief. Or failure, or fear, or a combination of everything. It is really something, the way my mind and my body play out these extravagant demonstrations of emotion.
Then I realized- I tend to a deeply passionate, sensitive, highly reactive way of life. Everyday, I feel inspiration, movement, devastation. It's dramatic, it really is. But I am not sure that I can help it. And so I am not sure that I can ever learn to harden my shell the next time something comes crashing down. For some reason I let it hit, erupt into flames, and burn until I don't feel the burn anymore. I don't know why I do that. Again, I don't think I can help it. I often wish I didn't welcome it so freely. But my mind and body absorb emotion like a sponge. And as a result, when one thing doesn't go my way, I break into pieces inside.
Here's why it matters that I realized this- I can still be strong. I can still be in control. I can still experience my emotions without allowing them to invade my life like a quick-spreading virus. I think that by growing up, you have a responsibility to the life you're building. You have to care about the part that's already built, even if it feels like it has crumbled down to the foundation. Like, a house might not have been fun to build at times, but it can still be fun to live in. And as long as you remember how to breathe, and also how to laugh, I think life will be okay. So as awful as rejection by my first and nearly life-long love is, I owe it to the life I've been building not to forget how much fun the other parts are.
