I got one hand in my pocket and the other one is playing a piano

Why is it that when we become adults we become much less emotionally demonstrative? We don't shout or jump around all that often. We try to keep our crying to a minimum. We keep a lid on our emotions. Should we? And what would it look like if we didn't?

It looks to be all but certain that baseball is coming back to DC. This is cause for much celebration. This morning DH was talking about possibly buying season tickets for next year and he asked me why I didn't seem very exicted. I was. Although that was greatly tempered by the fact that there are still many obstacles to overcome before opening day 2005 and I have no idea how much season tickets would cost. Even if I wasn't still worrying about these things I wondered what it would look like if I showed how excited I really was. I don't know. I seem to have somewhat lost the capacity for outward displays of emotion.

When DH and I were talking recently about how we were doing in our relationship he still felt that I didn't demonstrate how happy I was to see him when he got home or came upstairs from working all day in his office. He noted that our daughter smiled broadly and screamed "Dada! Dada!" when she sees him come in. Our son will run in and out of the room jumping and hand flapping and yelling "Hi Daddy!". (Quick aside that my son, Q, is on the Autism Spectrum and so the jumping and hand flapping is distinctive but you KNOW he's happy when he does it.) What do I do? I tried to think about that. Most days when Dh walks in I am running around trying to get dinner on the table. My kids have been melting down for the past half hour (they don't call it the witching hour for nothing!) and I am eargerly awaiting what is sometimes the best time of the day, bedtime (for the kids, not me, I stay up way too late). I don't run around and scream DH's name at the top of my lungs, though I'm quite sure that's not what he's expecting from me anyway. But what could I do to actually show him I'm happy to see him? So this is one of my new projects. Making sure I'm thinking about this when I greet him and taking special time to show him how I feel.

But this has led me to a wider questioning of what emotionality is allowed adults. I have always kept a lid on my emotions truth be told. They are WAY too strong if left unchecked. It would be less about namable emotions and more like a flow of colors or sensations. Not even something I could write about on paper. At least not in a way that made any sense. I have often felt that if I truly let go that the emotions would just overwhelm me. And I think I can probably remember and recount every time that I have let go like that. It's not necessarily a bad thing, it's just that I couldn't really live that way. I would get so lost in the emotion I would never be able to function in the "real" world. Recently on one of my morning walks I let go. For various reasons I was more open to sensations that morning. It was a beautiful morning and the sun was rising, my music was playing in my ears and I just FELT God. It was such an incredible feeling of love and beauty and wholeness that for a moment I felt like I could walk right into the sky and fly. It was incredible and I am so thankful that I was able to touch that emotion for a moment. But I had to come home after and get dressed and feed the kids and do the laundry. There is no way that if I stayed stuck in that sensation/emotion that I would ever be able to do any of these things. But somehow having had this emotion made all of these more tedious things more enjoyable for the rest of the day.

So here is the dilemma. How to be open enough to emotion, and demonstrating that emotion, that you truly feel but not get lost in it. And I mean feel everything. I mentioned a time when leting go and feeling resulted in a positive emotion but there are many times when it is a negative emotion: pain, fear, loneliness, anger. Those are the scariest of all. When you are in so much pain you feel as if your head will explode and you have no idea how to even put one foot in front of the other. But to be open to all that and yet still be able to exist and function in the "real" world. I am not sure yet how to do this and I think that when I really want to jump around the house or shout for joy and I don't, that is fleeing from that balance. And maybe I should just exist in that emotion more like my kids do. Have you tried jumping around the house today shouting someone's name (in joy or sorrow)? I think I just might do that before I make dinner.