Expression

Like most posts here, this began as an imaginary conversation. A friend made an off handed comment that they can't tell how I feel. Two weeks later, a make believe me starts talking about why...

I hide my feelings. On purpose. I have this image of my mother telling me to control my temper. It's set in their bed room. I don't remember much else, like why. And I know there were plenty of other opportunities for her to say that.

I remember crying a lot when my first pet bird died. We buried him out by the side of the house. I remember crying in junior high. It was a pickup basketball game. I'm short, nonathletic, and uncoordinated. I get picked last and never got the ball. For some reason, this one time, it bothered me. I left the game and one of the older guys came over to check on me.

In all of those cases, the advice was stop feeling. Now that's not what those well meaning people were trying to say. At least I assume so. All I know is that I heard that my feelings were bad and expressing them was socially forbidden. Well, expressing them in that manner, which is the only manner I know how. So either I express myself in an unacceptable way or not at all.

Wait, you say, there's a middle ground. No, there isn't. That's what I'm trying to say. You see this middle ground, but I don't. Like a blind spot, it's just not there.

The only way I can function in this world is by keeping tight reins on my emotions. I can't let go, not for a second. It's happened. And the fallout isn't pretty. It takes a very unique and caring person to see past it. Those people are very rare.

I imagine heaven as a place where either I'm fixed, or everyone else has the patience to put up with the insanity. I try to create that kind of place here for Vania. I suspect that she struggles with this too. And I don't want to suppress her emotions. I want her to feel. To find rest in being herself, the person God created her to be.