The Joy of Emotion

Friday morning, I woke up with a heavy heart. A heaviness that now I realize I've been carrying around for some time, and since Friday, it has just gotten heavier. As everyone knows, the mere living of life means that sooner or later you're going to have to say good-bye to someone. Be it a close friend, family member, or even just an acquaintance or study buddy you've enjoyed  talking to or spending time with.. to the old and young, wherever you are, whoever you are.. it is inevitable.

For me, it was my roommate of three years whose graduation commencement I was going to attend that morning. We had experienced most of college together. It even seemed like we had been through the wash together. We laughed, sang and danced (literally.. party hopped on a few occasions). We shared laundry coins, and even switched off buying and sharing milk every other week. We lost count of how many friends we had said good-bye to to marriages, missions, and new jobs. And through all of the seasons, romantic flings, breakups, bad dates, academic failures and pure heartache that life always brings, we stuck through it. Waking up that morning, my heart was heavy.. because I knew that the mere occurance of that ceremony, was about to mark the change of everything in my beloved friendship of three years. 

But I welcomed it, as I welcome the aftermath of the hardship even now as I sit and type out this blog post. Yes, we said our good-byes this morning and weeped a little bit, but I still embrace it. Why? Because it was emotion. 

The last few months I've been thinking a lot about emotion. The world calls women crazy when they are emotional, but are they really? No. In fact, to anyone who shuts off their emotion, I personally would turn around and literally run in the opposite direction. Its always easier to tell yourself not to care. Its always easier, when someone says something or does something hurtful, to walk away and stop yourself from feeling hurt.. but  since when does 'easier' necessarily mean 'good' or 'healthy' or even 'virtuous'? The one does not denote meaning of the other, they are not necessarily tied. 

The only reason I say this, was because a few months ago, I did just that. I turned off my emotion because I didn't want to feel the pain that life often carries with it. I didn't want to be hurt by things that were and weren't happening in my life, or by not being the most successful student, or by failing to meet the world's expectations.. so very slowly, and unconsciously.. I began to turn it off. When I realized I didn't care about the things that initially hurt me, I also realized that I had stopped caring about everything altogether. I felt nothing. And realizing how just very damaging this was.. (because without hurt, I stopped feeling happiness), I decided that I would do whatever it takes to just feel. Im not gonna lie, it was super hard.. and for a longtime thereafter the only thing I could feel was the weight of my weaknesses.. but this time, there was one difference: I felt some-thing. 

So as I end, I just want to express my gratitude for emotion--not just the positive but all the negative. Because without one, we cannot feel the other. As much as we want to sometimes cut out the painful things that we experience, or choose to not care---if we were to do that, then all happiness would diminish. As much as the world preaches that life should just be one big ball of fun and happiness, and to do everything you can to avoid negative emotions--You absolutely cannot be happy without them. Apathy is not happiness. In fact, it stinks! 

May we all rejoice in both the happy moments in our lives, and thank God for allowing us to feel pain.. because in the end, that it was makes joy so delicious--pure emotion. 

"For it must needs be, that there is an opposition in all things. If not so, my first-born in the wilderness, righteousness could not be brought to pass, neither wickedness, neither holiness nor misery, neither good nor bad. Wherefore, all things must needs be a compound in one; wherefore, if it should be one body it must needs remain as dead, having no life neither death, nor corruption nor incorruption, happiness nor misery, neither sense nor insensibility." -2 Nephi 2:11