I like when I try to write a post that comes off more as a school essay than an artistic piece pouring forth from my soul. I prefer the ones that come in uninhibited. They exist to exist and serve no purpose other than to impart how I’m feeling in the moment. Think of them as literary snapshots. Little photographs I can look back on, if I ever decide to re-read anything I’ve previously posted, and say to myself “Man, I was feeling it that day.”

Today I started some ridiculous piece about how if the government banned tiktok it would do a huge disservice, other than breaking it’s only fucking laws. With the app I have learned so much about myself in this very roundabout way. Most of the videos that scroll across my FYP have to do with trauma. Haven’t a clue why… But the algorithm knows all, I suppose. I never thought I was one who had responded negatively to it. However one evening, wading the sea of my thoughts, it occurred to me that I have.

Growing up I was a very emotional child. My parents never were one to stop me from feeling them. The outside world on the other hand did not agree with this parenting tactic. So for all my mother’s efforts to make me emotionally mature, the populace had other machinations. And they will do everything to make sure they perpetuate the myth that everyone will and should fit into a mold.

As I grew up, my peers and mentors would tell me that I was being too emotional or over-dramatic. Whatever I felt or expressed was brushed aside. As a result, I chose to hide my feelings instead while suffering in silence. Regardless of my attempt my body refused to hide anything. It manifested as something else. Always. I imagine it is the same for most people. It’s why some turn to addictive substances. It’s numbing. Only then can we ‘fit.’

In the early days of dating my husband, I was already spiraling into alcohol addiction. He saw it VERY clearly. He even made a deal with me that if I stopped drinking, so would he. So, I got sober. However, without recognizing the trauma I was drinking to escape I instead to turned to sex. Having a chemical dispenser in my head, ever at the ready to dole out my own make of dopamine, was much easier to conceal and carry out.

This behavior was my husbands and my biggest hurtle. I regret so much of my past and how much I hurt him with the lies… He’s forgiven me but I can’t. I don’t like that I ever betrayed his trust.

This is the moment where I realize that this is why I write. I clack out my thought because I have all of these “big emotions” that society otherwise would tell me I’m being annoying or I need to get over. Here, on this blank page, I get to be myself. I can share on an open platform where someone, just maybe someone, will read it and I will be validated. I realized this last piece today. Finally all the points connected and I understood.

All it took was my husband dying.

So many people have graciously given me the space to share my emotions. Ones in which I thought I did not feel. Every day I worried I was some kind of monster, as if I was happy he was gone. Even though I know that is absolutely not the case. It is just that I have spent my entire life pretending to have no emotions because I was “too much” for some. And obviously I wasn’t meant to be around them, because the people who genuinely care about you will not feel that way.

When I hide my emotions they always, ALWAYS manifest as anger. Absolutely every time. Boys/Men are allowed to have anger. Anything else is unacceptable. The biggest flaw in that, especially with me, is as someone who feels things deeply my rage is worse. It’s compounded with my anguish/sadness/grief with the anger I feel with all of those in my past that told me I was too much and at society for forcing me to be a “man.” What was just a small fire has turned into an inferno.

The one person who understood all of this about me, who let me have my fits of rage, with patience, sympathy and grace, is gone. I am once again left to handle all of my feelings alone, or in blog posts, because I will always fear isolating myself with my feelings.

Merry Christmas.