capacity
also: how to understand intense emotions
hello, i am back! i needed to take the two weeks off because i was struggling to find time for myself. now i am well-rested and rejuvenated. ready to write again. also if you’re interested you can find me in other socials: tiktok, insta & youtube. i want to pursue more creative things this year. thank you for reading! it means the world to me :)
writing to me is self-expression and reflection. i can’t imagine a version of life where i do not write habitually. for nothing brings me as much stillness and joy. but the same craft that sustains me, burns me. when i read my favorite writings, i am flustered with emotions. in awe of their art, but envious of their ability to write about their pain so artfully. envious my words are anything but.
when you introduce joy into your life, you are also introducing the possibility of pain. it is most obvious when you start a new relationship. everything is fresh indisputably good at the beginning. then cracks become evident and you realize wait a minute, what happened to the butterflies?
the joy can be introduced via a craft or a person, but the bad, or at least the possibility of it, always follows the good. i know this is a fact of life, but i used to be perplexed by this variance. how can one thing incite such disarray? such distinct emotions seemingly from opposite ends of a spectrum?
i think when you bring something that potentially ignites emotions, what you really are doing is introducing capacity. before my first real relationship, i didn’t know i was capable of love beyond the superficial. i didn’t know i was capable of caring so much for someone else. shortly after it ended, i learned i too was capable of immense heartache.
quite contrary to what i initially thought, intense emotions belong to the same end of a spectrum. the opposite of joy isn’t pain, but it is a life without joy. it is a life without the thing that brings you joy, pain, and all the emotions in between.
the more you spend time with the thing, either feeling can become more pronounced. they may also wither. you usually will be at a crossroads having to decide whether the thing still has a place in your future.
the crossroads is akin to closing a chapter. when you do, it doesn’t mean the joy you once felt wasn’t real, it certainly was. it simply means it wasn’t enough to sustain your current reality. moving on without the thing will leave you empty as there is a capacity you now know exists. sometimes it even hurts you become dramatic and at the moment swear off it forever.
the beauty of life is we are as malleable as we allow ourselves to be. things that introduce capacity change us. the point isn’t for it to last forever or for it to be a painless experience. but rather to learn something new about life and ourselves, allowing us to marvel at feeling alive.
the best things in life aren’t things that are painless. rather they are things you choose to have in your life because you love the thing despite it all and simply can’t imagine a life without it.