Emotions

Emotions

By John W. Vander Velden

 

Just because you can’t place them in a brown bag, lock them in a box, or seal them in a jar doesn’t mean that emotions aren’t real.

 

Why is it we categorize things.  Without thought we decide what we feel is real and what exists in some sort of imaginary existence. We cannot hold pain in our hand yet none would deny it as a real thing.  Yet when we consider emotions, we label them as some sort of vapor-like concept, something each has but well, really not…sorta.  Yet each of us deal with fear, joy, loss, love, sadness, and the countless other emotions that find their way into our everyday.  These are the things that shape our lives just as surely the door to the bathroom that gets stuck when the humidity rises.  We exist in a universe of solid and unsolid things that are in truth very real.

Who can say that love is not a real thing when our heart skips a beat at the mention of someone’s name?  Who dares to tell us that fear is unreal when on a cold dark stormy night creepy sounds send our breathing into hyper drive?  That joy is not real, the first instant we hold our newborn.  That these things and the countless others are merely stimuli that cause biologic changes or propel our mind to imagine implausible truths or circumstances.  Baaaa!

Our existence is filled with so many things, and each of them are real to us.  The faucet that drips and prevent our slumber may not matter to our neighbor, unless he becomes troubled by our illuminated rooms at all hours.  The drip is to us a real thing, a real annoyance, to him out of earshot insignificant.  Just because you friend is not allergic to cheese does not make your allergy less…or unreal.  We live in this mixed bag of things and feelings that form who we are, and all of them are really real.  Emotions shape how we see the world and how we deal with it.  Emotions give meaning to living.  Emotions can protect us, but sometimes they stand in the way of living.  Emotions add color to our day, blues and golds, as well as the entire gamut of the rainbow.  Emotions can lift us to the stratosphere, or drag us to the ocean’s bottom.  Emotions are like the air we breathe, invisible but very real!

(404 Words)                                       9-8-2015