Today, this morning, I am lying in bed, looking out the window of my daughter's 5th floor college dormitory room. Unfortunately the rain and fog are preventing me from seeing what I know to be the beautiful and breathtaking lake her dorm overlooks.
Why am I in a dorm room with my daughter and her roommate you might be asking? (Remember it is 9am EST and they are still sleeping as this is college and sleeping in on a Tuesday morning is socially acceptable) First and really the only reasons necessary are that she is my daughter and asked if I would come for a visit. It is the week before finals and she missed me. Yeah like that took more than a New York minute to decide to come for a visit!
I would have also stayed in a hotel as I am sure most parents would have, but she asked me to stay in her room. So here I find myself, laying next to my daughter, as she sleeps (can't remember the last time I did that) knowing she is 19 years old but feeling like she is 9. I begin to get a little emotional.
I look around the room and see, what I would initially define as a mess, and plethora of 19 year old college girl paraphernalia. Clothes, shoes, makeup, nail polish (why do 2 girls need 30 different nail polish colors at college?), glasses (of the adult beverage nature), cups, bowls, cleaning supplies (although I am not sure they are used often), electric hair styling devices, posters, pictures, Christmas lights, food and oh yes, what looks to be at least some educational books, papers, and a computer (phew, I was worried about what my tuition money was actually buying). Many may see a mess, as did I at first glance, but after arriving last night and hearing her tell me how she cleaned, changed the sheets and prepared for my visit, well suddenly it looks very clean!
As I sit here and write, I am again feeling emotional. As a mom, as a woman and a person. So much has changed since I went to college 25+ years ago and yet nothing has changed. So much has changed in my daughter's 19 years and yet nothing has changed. She may be older, more mature, away from me and have a few more tattoos and piercings than she did when she was 9 years old, but she is still that little girl I remember.
I am thinking about how we spent our night. Dinner together, time in her dorm sharing stories with the friends she invited over to meet me. I feel blessed by the notion that this is a turning point in our relationship as she asked me to be there and chose to spend a quiet, subdued Monday night sharing wine and visiting with her mom. Again another wave of emotion falls over me.
She cleaned her room for my visit, gave up her bed for me and slept on the floor, told me about all her life and the boys. She revealed her money concerns and yet never once asked me for money, rather said, no worries, I got it covered. She shared a part of her life that I don't often see and I was proud to see the person she has become! Emotional, yes, blessed and thankful.....so much!!
Now I am sure upon my departure she will return to her normal college routine which includes her on- campus job, parties, downtown, pizza, wings, the occasional alcoholic beverage (wincing as I write those words), boys and hopefully classes and studying but I will remember how absolutely pleasant and fun she made my visit.
This brings me to the reason I write today. Emotions. The things our brain has us feel about the situations we face, the people we meet, know and deal with every day. The experiences we have. Simply put, how we feel about our life and our journey every day!
I am often so amazed and perplexed by the range of emotions one can feel day to day, week to week. I can honestly say there are days when I lose count of the different emotions I feel.
As people, as human beings, we have been given the gift of emotion and feeling. Although at times it may feel like a curse, in the end it is a gift. Although at time we believe it necessary to suppress those emotions and feeling, I say embrace them. They are just one more way of understanding who you are as a person.
We are also given the gift and opportunity to decide what to do with those emotions and feelings (or not do) when we have them. Last week, as those who read my blog know, was not such a great emotional week for me. The week itself was not bad. No one got hurt, no one I love found themselves in trouble, there were no catastrophic events that would have drastically changed the course of my life, but from an emotional standpoint, it was, well less than desirable. That has all changed in a matter of days and this week I find myself riding an emotional high! I find myself giving thanks for all the amazing and positive things I have and feeling blessed.
That is the funny thing about emotions, they can be and often are the things that cause us the most distress. They can distract us immensely from the day to day tasks we must do. They can feel devastating and can often derail us from our journey, our goals.
Emotions, however are two fold. They are also the things that allow us to feel happy. Feel elation when something wonderful has happened. They allow us to forget what is upsetting us when our emotions are running high and we are feeling positive. At that moment all seems right with the world. And then, smack, in the blink of an eye, in what seems to be a flash of light, with no warning, emotions can change. Something happens, something is said (or not said), you hear information or read news and just like the brain goes into over drive and you begin to process and feel something different than you did 1 minute ago.
Emotions are and always will be just like a roller coaster. Whether you are a fan of coasters or not (I am....can't get enough of them) you know the feeling I am talking about. Happy, sad, anticipation, fear, angry, elated, frustrated, exhilarated (too many to mention), that wave you can physically feel in your stomach and throughout your body. That feeling that takes your breath away momentarily and makes your brain a little hazy. Whether you are riding an actual roller coaster or just a proverbial emotional roller coaster, it is always a rush.
I am intrigued about how my own emotional roller coaster effects my life and decisions everyday. I look back on some of the decisions I have made, the things I have said and the paths I have taken and really so many of them were made based upon my emotional state at the time and not the smart person I am or the data I had at that time. Why do we do this? Why do we allow our emotional state of mind to drive so much of our life? Reflecting, I believe it is because at the time, at that very moment, the emotions we are feeling are so strong, so powerful, that your brain struggles to process what you intellectually know, with what your emotions or heart are making you feel. So often it is our heart that wins the struggle. It wins because we are for the most part idealists. We are dreamers. We are a people that make choices and decisions based upon what we want and hope will happen and not what our intellectual brains are telling us should and will happen. It is a constant internal struggle and one that "our emotions" so often win.
I am not a medical doctor, nor am I an educated, trained psychologist or psychiatrist, but I am sure there are very specific medical terms, reasons, definitions for what I am describing but for me, the average person, living my journey it has become clear that while my emotions can and most often do get the best of me they have served me very well for the last 44 years. There are not many things I regret and only sometimes do I look back wishing I had done something different. You see on this journey my ultimate goal is to regret little, live every day to it's fullest potential and never look back and say "I wish I had......" That to me is success!
Through this time of reflection I have also learned that moving forward I must work harder to allow my brain, my intellectual side, the smart person to drive more of my decisions. Now that is not to say that emotions should not have that power and control they do but for me, they both need to be more balanced. You see, one of my lessons learned recently is that even after experiencing some of the same outcomes from decisions I have made emotionally, I often, knowing what will happen, repeat history. This, in it of itself baffles me. Now that I have identified this, I will need to work hard at it daily. But, again, I must remember, we are all human, living our journey the best way we can.
While I will work hard to create a better balance between my brain (and what I know to be true) and my heart (want I want and wish to be true) I will continue to ride the wave of my emotions and let those emotions drive my decisions (within reason!), create my paths and allow me to really live my journey. While sometimes I experience emotions that make me feel sad or angry, It is the happiness, joy, satisfaction, thankful and blessed feelings I get from most of my emotions, most of the time that have me looking forward to each new day and excited for where my journey will bring me.
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