All the Feels

So many times, I’ve been told that my emotions run very close to the surface, that I wear my heart on my sleeve, that I’m sensitive, empathetic, emotive. Those things are all true. These things are also true: I am deep, I keep things close to the chest, I am strong, I don’t suffer fools and I can fake a laugh. Most of the time, I don’t fake it though. I am too full of real feelings to want to add fake any additional ones. My feelings are simultaneously deep and close to the surface because they are so big. They fill me up, top to bottom. Because of this, I can’t let them pile up. Emotional balance means I must live in the moment,  be present, and let myself feel the bigness of my feelings, the bigness that is life. Ignoring, denying or otherwise trying to convince myself that “I’m fine” and don’t feel all the feels only creates a backlog of big, big feelings to work through. I don’t know how to not have big feelings, but I am accepting that, for me, being fine INCLUDES having big feelings. When I am fine, I am feeling all the feels, because that’s either what I’m wired to do or what I know how to do. Maybe someday I’ll be able to look a feeling and say “you are there, but I do not feel you, you do not affect me,” but that’s where or who I am right now. Right now, the safest thing for me is to feel the feels.