Wait Up

There's this phenomenon that happens to me sometimes, where I am unable to feel a thing fully. I am not quite sure how I am supposed to feel. I need some sort of validation for a feeling, it seems, before I can really enter into it.

Sometimes I get that validation from myself. I go for a walk and have a complete conversation with myself, or I act out a scene where I am sharing my concerns or fears or my joy and by the end of it, I really feel what I feel.

Sometimes I get it from others. I broach it to friends in an e-mail, and I say how I think that I'm feeling, explaining the circumstances. Their answers have a way of quantifying my emotions. How bad exactly do I feel? Or, how good exactly do I have a right to feel?

What a strange idea -- to deal with emotions in such a complicated way. I have this picture of me standing still, face frozen, and then reaching into my chest and pulling out my heart. Looking down at it, I see that it is pulsing with sorrow, or pain, or loss, or passion or pride. I hold it up for passersby to see, watching their faces for a reaction. Or I hold it up to a mirror until my expression matches the depth of the emotion that I see.

What do I feel?

I often don't know. There will be an unsettled-ness inside of me, and that is the only thing that tells me I am feeling something deeply. I think this is okay. I've always been a slow thinker, and a late bloomer.

I was a late bloomer physically. I was the smallest child in the class for most of my elementary years. I didn't show any signs of puberty until about age fifteen.
I think that is why I am feeling something deeply about a situation I was in today where someone made a joke of a sexual nature about me.

It was very public, and inappropriate, and it was said by a man who was in charge. I felt immediately diminished by it. But then came the rush of all those thoughts -

how should I feel?
it was just a joke.
why should he have this power?
oversensitive.
what are others thinking?
why do I feel so small all of a sudden?
it is only words, he is an idiot.
am I the only one who feels this way?
embarassment.
I am so tired.
don't look hurt, make your face normal.

Coming home there is a feeling of deadness about me and at the same time a stirring of some emotion. But I don't know what it is now. And I have this thought that no one can tell me how I feel. I'm the only one. I'm really the only one who knows.

When it comes to me late and fully-formed, I will be safely separated from the event. And I will not excuse any of my feelings, or apologize for them.

Because what I feel will be the real thing.