I’m in a bit of a funk and have been since February. To distill down the reasons would take time and effort I don’t have right now. This funky feeling of mine matters because it affects my writing life.
I’m still writing, but it’s not feeling like it did last year, when I found my writing voice. In 2020, I kicked my insecurities around worthiness to the curb on and just started writing. To my delight, I found this unreal sense of purpose unlike anything I’ve felt before.
Being an engineer, I’d thought I found my purpose in my career. I find immense satisfaction in using numbers, formulas, and drawings to build roads that take people where they want to go. I’ve found humanity in the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) field through the relationships I’ve built with people who share this same passion. But then, I unexpectedly found my art, and I even wrote this post about it last fall.
But my funk is lingering, and I had a light bulb click on this week. In the process of finding my art, I also found my feelings. Which means I’ve had the distinct pleasure and utter despair of feeling all of them. It’s been a messy, un-pretty, sometimes nauseating process to feel feelings that’ve been all bottled up for two decades. I feel them spilling out every which ways and uncontrollably, like a sticky, stinky mess without a mop. Plus, naming feelings is one thing but dealing with them is another. The silver lining is the sheer FREEDOM that comes from dealing with feelings. They really do have a beginning, a middle, and an end (thank you, Burnout by Amelia Nagoski and Emily Nagoski).
At the time I awakened my feelings, I’d been going to therapy for months. After putting in the work by talking things out every two weeks and reading on my own (Codependency No More by Melody Beattie and Boundaries by Cloud & Townsend are my faves), it finally clicked. I’m allowed to feel my feelings. And, I’m free to express them, too. God bless you if this concept is foreign to you, and you’ve never had intense such struggles to feel your own feelings.
Back to the light bulb moment this week. I dug deep and suddenly began to define a distinct, core emotion for the last four seasons. So, I decided to walk through each feeling, one by one.
I should note that anger is typically my first emotion when I feel (react), so it didn’t feel prominent last year. It was certainly there more than I care to admit, but I was able to dismiss it more often and see what was underneath.
A Joyful Summer 2020: When people talk about finding themselves, this is as close as I came to that feeling last summer. Every day I woke up and thought, what’s next? I felt…
- Inspired by new podcasts.
- Confident at my job.
- Playful on weekend hikes.
- Creative letting my writing just flow through blogging, journaling, and storytelling.
- Calued when I saw friends after a long spring quarantine hiatus.
- Courageous in who I was becoming.
A Hopeful Fall 2020: While still full of bubbly new gems of self-discovery, I could tell that as the days cooled off and snow began to fall, my joy was still around, but muted. I felt…
- Hopeful about the yet-to-be-named next project I’d be sent to next at work.
- Peaceful about the seemingly steady state of life after making it through 6+ months of the pandemic.
- Grateful for smaller gatherings and less to do’s during the holiday season.
- Optimistic about 2021, ready to take on the year and try to recapture what I could that 2020 took from us.
A Fearful Winter 2021: My tidal wave of joy turned hope came to a slow, steady stop shortly after the holidays. I felt…
- Nervous because I still didn’t have the “next” project at work. I’d only been committed to a two-month gig to “help out” (the plot thickens here… read on).
- Rejected after not being selected on a few summer projects we bid at work. Suddenly, I didn’t check all the boxes. (Figures, just as I finally learned how to not be such a box checker over my summer of self-discovery)
- Inadequate at my short-term project because it was much larger than my last one. There were some elements I hadn’t seen before, like major traffic phasing and corrective concrete work.
- Overwhelmed when told out of the blue I’d be taking over as the construction manager of a multi-million project . Yep, the one that I was initially only spending two months on. I had a sliver of gratitude for being given the opportunity, but whew. Overwhelm would become my new tidal wave.
A Sad, Stressful Spring 2021: I made it through the uncertainties of winter, then another core emotion was lingering and ready: sadness. And from the stress of going from no project to a major project, the last few months have just been hard. I feel…
- Sad because my mom and stepdad are moving to Florida part-time in a few months. I love them with my whole heart.
- Depleted by my job, although I’ve come so far in the last three months. It’s a daily metaphor of jumping on a moving train and still waiting for my legs to catch up so I can hop on. (I’ve got 1.5 legs barely on the caboose)
- Lonely because I don’t have time or energy for socialization right now. I also sense others’ hesitancy to get together too, despite these long-awaited vaccines.
- Burned out by all things social media and have basically disappeared from it for an unknown period of time.
- Disconnected from my faith, although I know it’s not lost.
What a wonderful life it is, eh? I mean that sincerely. If I take myself up to 30,000 feet, how incredible is it to have these intricacies and complexities in just one human experience? I’m equally grateful and annoyed. Grateful to be in tune enough with myself to trust the process of feelings, but annoyed to finally face the unfairly labeled “negative” emotions. Better than late than never I suppose. Really, my true goal is to face them and bring back some creativity and inspiration.
But truth be told, I have to believe that all of the above isn’t just me being down in the dumps and broody for no reason.
Colorado has had an 8 month winter. Our first snow came last September, and our (hopefully) last snow came this week in May. Indirectly, my seasons of emotions tells me I’m a sunshine girl through and through. Strange, since I live in the 300-days-of-sunshine-a-year state, and it’s felt nonexistent through these cold snaps. The sun makes me feel light and bright and full of allll the good things. I honestly think I was able to finish this post because the sun came out today, swelled my heart twice its size, and kept shining until I could sit down to write this after 6pm on a weeknight.
If you made it this far, thank you. This whole exercise has been as therapeutic as I’d hoped, though I could’ve just journaled all this out rather than blogging. But the reason I share my writing is always the same: what if someone feels seen, understood, or known because of one sentence, one paragraph, one story of mine? What if my mess helped them escape their own momentarily? What if it helped in some way I’ll never know? A single answer to even one of those “what if”s is worth it.
I’ve deeply felt my core emotions for a sustained amount of time, from the fun ones to the painful ones, and I’m still alive and functioning… and sharing it publicly. And now it’s making new room for all I have to be ridiculously grateful for. This whole feelings business will come around again, but my Type A self is so happy to be more prepared for it.
Here’s to our feelings, whatever they are and whenever they come.
Left by Day, Write by Night 