Learning to Feel

Emotions are tangible.  They are real; they cloud your judgement and make you feel like walking around with your head in your hands. For a long time, I refused to validate my feelings,  pretending that if I couldn't exactly put something into words, it must not exist. Writing has always been cathartic for me but lately I see that I have also allowed it to become limiting. Because, ultimately, there are a whole range of emotions that don't fit perfectly into twenty-six letters and I need to be okay with that. I need to be all right with experiencing rather than understanding all the time. And maybe, someday, I will get the maturity and distance to put those emotions into words. Or maybe not. But the truth is, I have been disowning my emotions for too long, deeming them unfit to acknowledge because there are people out there that are smarter than me, wiser, and more experienced. I've been telling myself that the only reason I cannot understand something is because I am not trying hard enough when, in reality, some things are not meant to be deciphered, sometimes the answer is none of the above. So, yes, maybe I will never have all the answers about myself. I am a work in progress; that is the way it is supposed to be. And, I am working on forgiving myself but it is a journey, not a destination.