Feeling

I was telling a friend earlier today about how happy I've been feeling lately.  It's true.  There's been a lot of happiness in my life.  And it's cool because it's happiness that's coming from inside, not from external events.  That means that I don't have to depend on everything around me being super duper for me to feel ok.  (Of course I like the super duper, but that's another story).

What I realized tonight is that it's not just that I'm feeling happy.  It's that I'm feeling.  I've always been a pretty emotionally closed off person.  For example, on 9/11 a friend and I danced around singing that REM song, "It's the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine."  Yeah totally oblivious to the fact that lots of people were dying in a huge scary tragedy.  (Sorry, don't hate me!).  I learned early on that feeling was dangerous, and caused things to be more painful, so I stopped doing it.  Really as I think about it I'm not sure I ever learned how to feel because I was never given the chance to express anything.

Regardless, that's all different now.  I'm feeling things, and wow is it intense.  Last night I was so overwhelmed with how good my life was becoming that it brought me to tears.  Now tonight I was driving home from my hockey game and thinking about how amazingly beautiful the city lights are at night.  Then it jumped in to my head that some of those lights might be the homes of families that can't afford food to eat.  And then I was suddenly so so painfully sad for all the people going hungry in the world.  It was so overwhelming I almost had to pull over and re-group.  It's not that before I didn't know there were hungry ppl.  It's just that now I'm experiencing things on this new, deep level.  The good, the bad, the everything.  I'm feeling it.  It's intense, terrifying, and so exciting all at once.  I'm not sure if this makes sense to anyone else because it's something inside that's so strong but I don't really have words for. I'm just in awe of the world right now.




(Now, in answer to the other questions that may have arisen from this post:  Yes I play hockey.  Ice hockey.  Yes really.  I love it.  It's fun, and it's my legal opportunity to hit people.  No we don't check, but I still get to hit people and be physical.  No, we lost our game but it was close.  2-1.  I almost scored. :) )