Hello on the last day of September,
A trip to the Lehigh Valley this past Sunday revealed that fall is truly upon us. While there are a few weeks before I think we will hit peak color, the reds or maroons are prominent at the moment, there was no doubt we are beyond the various verdant greens of summer. Additionally, after speaking with some who were north from Maine to Upstate New York, they saw brilliant fall foliage. It was about this same time I spent a week on Lake Champlain in 1990, I believe. It was my first time into Vermont and a quick jaunt into New Hampshire, and every road seemed like a postcard in the making. It’s been a busy, and also a bit of a potentially life-changing month, but all-in-all, a good one.
From both expected things to possibly different outcomes, from formal interviews to extra meetings and conversations, from teaching a class at church to getting ready to judge a Debate and Forensics Tournament, I’ve kept busy. I remember my father once telling me he was so busy retired he could not figure out where he found time to go to work. While I do not believe I’m at that point, but I am also not sure I want to be such. There are three things I am trying to do, again based on graciousness and gratefulness, I have worked diligently to avoid drama, and as experienced even in the last day, sometimes avoiding it can inadvertently create it – or at least I get hit as sort of collateral damage. However, it’s made life much less stressful. Second, most everyday, I take a nap. It might be a half hour; it might be longer. One of my good friends teases me about it, and I think it is because we wishes he could take one. Additionally, most nights I am in bed before 10:00, and that is even a bit late. Quite a difference from earlier in my life. The third thing is to make thoughtful choices about how I will spend my time, deciding intentionally what I will engage with and what I will not. In terms of time, the third is perhaps the most significant; in terms of mental and emotional health, probably the first, and the second might be most consequential for my physical health. As I think about it, I’ve done something quite holistically.
What I’ve learned over the time, especially since I moved to Bloomsburg, is to manage my emotions. It’s still a daily process, but the extremes that characterized my life at moments (and sometimes periods) are no longer how I live life. Emotions are such a powerful force in our lives, and the way that others respond to us or what we do that affects them seldom occur in a vacuum. One of the most difficult things I’ve learned is, for instance, anger is not wrong. There is justifiable anger, those times when feeling that intense emotion is appropriate. Another emotion, perhaps the most powerful of all human emotions, is when we feel or believe we feel we love another. I’ve specifically focused on this more than once, noting that grief is the proof that love exists. I imagine the range of emotions my good friend, Judy, on whom a recent blog is focused, is extreme and intense. Again, all justifiable, understandable. In either case, I have learned seldom are emotions arguable, we are entitled to our feelings, and unlike thoughts or beliefs, which are debatable, feelings really aren’t. So what makes them so problematic? It is what we do as a reaction to them; the physical reactions to the emotion and the actual wear and tear to the emotion is nothing rational, and yet we need to respond rationally. And yet, seldom do we make that jump from the pathos of the situation to the ethos. And yet it is possible, that is what I’ve learned in the last two-plus decades. It is neither anger nor love that is problematic, it’s what we do with it. The energy in both emotions is tremendous, and such energy can be constructive, but being boundary conscious when our pathos is profound requires time, and time in the immediate moment. Unrequited love or anger creates an emotional rollercoaster to be sure, and the longer we hold on, the more damaging it becomes. Perhaps that is why forgiveness is so difficult, but ultimately to necessary. Without it, our anger seethes and our love turns to resentment (or worse). When we base our actions on what we feel versus what we understand, we become not only vulnerable, we become profoundly fragile.
One of the most interesting things about the consequences of emotional damage is how quickly it occurs and how long it takes to recover, if we ever do. Again, forgiveness, not only of the other but from the other, is part of the healing equation. However, what happens when there is no true forgiveness? What does lack of closure, which is one of the results of absolution, do? It can be imprisoning, paralyzing. Another essential element of that equation is self-forgiveness, to admit honestly our failing, our inability to manage the circumstance, not only to the other, but to ourselves. Introspection is imperative, vital to moving beyond, not just pushing it away, both confronting it and confessing it. That process is painful because it lays us bare to our failings. There is no where to turn, and in that bareness (that metaphorical nakedness) the stark reality of our world confronts us. It is also the moment we find ourselves, and in that discovery is a freedom that is beyond our comprehension.
Emotions are both necessary and dangerous. They are essential to our humanness and can destroy us. The most profound emotions sometimes require the most thoughtful justification, but therein lies the connection of what makes us different from other species as far as we know. Recently, albeit unexpectedly, I’ve worked diligently and thoughtfully about those times when emotions and responses were damaging. I did make the choice to visit a period of life when significant parts of my daily existence was painful, both to others and myself. Even now, as I work through more of it, connections to whom I was as a small child and experiences during that time influenced more than I ever knew. I see threads, links, before unrealized. While little of it is completely surprising, systemic examination of it all as well as connecting to both my feelings and actions has been revelatory. As I shared with some, nothing I’ve done that failed the other, hurt the other, or damaged the other can be changed. For all of it, I am accountable. No matter my perception of things, no matter where things stand even now, emotions have been both my fortune and my downfall, or so it might seem, but it was not my emotions, but rather my actions. Emotions can be justified, but some actions cannot. That is where I find things now.
Earlier last night, I was fortunate to speak with my dear friend, Judy, the same person who lost her husband of 63 years recently. It was a wonderful time of sharing, and it was emotional for both of us. I shred with her what I had written, and I was humbled to do so. We shared anecdotes of our almost 50 years of being in each other’s lives. I think of all the things I feel at this moment, the emotion most poignant is gratitude. She and Lee have taught me so much.Thank God for people and for emotions.
Thanks as always for reading.
Michael
