What am I attempting to explain with these posts?
I started over with this one because the original explanation didn’t land. This tends to happen when I attempt to explain things.
I am afflicted with wordlessness and too often called to a quiet and lonely place in an attempt to explain the sensations. I love this calling and I live for those moments when I can rightly translate the feeling into words. But this calling makes communication difficult, especially when attempting to communicate feelings to your loved ones as the intensity of feelings is amplified.
What I wish for at times is to not hear this calling because I think it would allow me to simply be present, to feel without the need to explore and explain. Emerging from an experience I am wholly immersed in is an incredible feeling: the residual joy we experience as we understand we were just lost in a lovely moment, we were just somewhere other with another, is rapturous, no?
But if I were to be steeped in a sensation and not feel the need to dissect it, would I understand the whole feeling, would I be able to find my way back, would I be able to recognize and invoke that feeling in another?
In the moment, I am never able to adequately explain emotions. Is anyone? How do we explain that feelings felt can be misrepresented? These posts are my attempt.
These posts are for my partner in life and for my daughters. They are the only home I’ve ever known as an adult. From the time I was aware of emotions as a kid, and aware of my inability to control my emotions as a teenager, and completely defeated and overwhelmed by emotions in my 20s, I have been lost in the swirl of sensations. They have been a place of constant and unwavering solace.
Now, this is a tremendous burden for them, I’m sure. But they never let on. They go right on maintaining the psychological and emotional safety that allows me to find some peace. This space they create allows for focus and creativity to flourish. And through all of this, I’ve learned to return the energy, or at least I’ve learned to try and return it.
My oldest is a high reactive just like me. My youngest is a peacemaker just like my partner. These posts represent my attempt to create the same safe, unburdened space for them. My dream for them is to feel at peace so they can dream, and focus on executing their dreams.
These posts are my attempt to explain the sensations I experience, and create some common ground, a shared language, so we can normalize intimate conversations on a larger scale. And so I can help my daughters find a way to better explain their sensations.
This proves difficult though. For example, the time my partner said, “I see your heart.” I’ve been trying to grasp the impact this simple phrase had on me for years. I have yet to fully grasp the impact, let alone find a way to explain it.
But maybe in sharing these moments and sensations and posts, we can help each other peel back the layers of our complicated sensations, and recognize those rapturous moments, find our way back more often, and transform the inexplicable.
Some texts that have helped me along the way.
Bittersweet: How Sorrow & Longing Make us Whole from Susan Cain