Ocean of Emotion

I was a child with Big Feelings. In a home where expressed emotions were dismissed or denied, I found socially acceptable solace in literature. I could dive head-first into the deepest depression or soar in the heights of happiness alongside each protagonist. Each page of prose transported me to worlds where I could imagine expressing each emotion without shame.

It should come as no surprise then that as soon as I could write full sentences, I started processing my feelings through the written word. There was nowhere else I felt more alive than in my private writings. In my diary, I didn’t have to imagine myself alongside a main character; I could take center stage and be my truest self as much as I pleased. I wrote and wrote and wrote, filling up journals and endless leaves of paper with the me I couldn’t be in real life.

As the years wore on, I had less and less time to spare for frivolous pursuits. Still, I made time in my darkest hours to let the feelings flow from pen to paper through high school and college, even getting published in an online literary journal at age 19.

Somewhere between then and now, the reality of survival in adult life sank in. The self I knew and expressed in writing was no longer welcome as I buried the Big Feelings deep down to get through each day. Day by depressing day, I stumbled through the fog of malaise deliberately avoiding my art in hopes that I could escape the tsunami of feelings trailing behind.

The problem with this is that tsunamis get taller the closer they come. What started as one or two small ripples of feelings turned into an unstoppable wall of emotions I can no longer suppress.

As I struggle to swim my way out of this ocean of emotion, I remember the child who wrote with reckless abandon, throwing caution to the wind. I remember the life in every word and the vibrancy of each pen stroke. I remember coming alive with every emotion that flowed out onto the page.

And I pick up a pen and begin to write.

And little by little, I drag that pen across the paper like an oar across the ocean, rowing through the waves until I find myself again.