I have always liked David Bowie. I am not the biggest fan. I don't have every album, I never saw him in concert. But there is just something about him that always appealed to me. Today I learned why and also why I should listen to every album and then some. Bowie has been my path to emotional expression for most of my life, one of the few I have really related to. I couldn't have told you that until today, but I realize that it's true.
It started because I was chatting with my theyfriend yesterday. They commented that they were confused by me in relation to my blog. They said, "your blog seems very intimate and like you're in touch with your feelings and motivations." Then a bit later in the conversation, they noted that while I might seem in touch with them in a written blog, that wasn't true when we spent time together.
I was relating this to another friend who had a great response which I thought explains it better than I could: "...but it's so much easier to be all emotionally connected in writing! You can just keep rewriting, editing and/or smacking yourself with metaphorical frying pans until you get emotional stuff out! AND you get all the time you need to write things out in a nice, reasonable, logical, fashion--not the messy way that oral words can often come out."
My friend is right, but I know that there is more to it than that. Back in the days of LiveJournal, another friend observed that all my drama seemed contained to my LJ and little, if any of it, came out in person. No one has to read my blog, If they do, they get my emotional stuff. But unless it is specifically requested, I don't like to show my emotions in public.
I know that my emotional affect can be rather flat. To quote my theyfriend about how I express my emotions in person: "it
also seems like sometimes you want to know how to [express emotions], and other times like
feelings are the most stupid thing ever and best to avoid..."
I have emotions, I feel them all the time. But emotional expression is a learned skill. There are seven basic emotions. Learning how to read them is a skill, but so is learning how to express them, or in my case, not to express them. I am exceptionally good at reading emotions, but horrible at showing them.
Imagine having parents who lacked the ability to discern facial expressions. How would they raise a child? In my case, they taught me that while having emotions is unavoidable, emotional expression to other people shows a lack of control. I was more than welcome to express fear, surprise, or anger. But I had to be able to articulate and explain it. I was never allowed to simply be upset or be sad. I learned that emotional outbursts (as my parents would call them) were wrong. If I was going to have one, I was expected to go to my room and have it quietly. I could come out when I could be "reasonable".
Emotions became a thing to have in private. I broke my fingers when I was 11, they were dislocated and there was severe nerve damage. I didn't cry until I was in the privacy of my own room, hours later. I can, and do, get overwhelmed with emotion, but the proscription against showing emotions is so deeply laid, I feel embarrassed to have imposed on someone. I will usually apologize and then the emotion that I was feeling gets wrapped in shame. At that point, it can be nearly impossible for me to separate the two.
My solution to this problem has been simple, I learned to avoid showing emotions and having emotional relationships. I wish this were a healthy solution. I can, and probably should, write a book on how deeply screwed up some of my relationships have ended up being.
I don't think I realized how much I was just skating through life, not really paying attention to my emotions until my body started rebelling. I was going over my test numbers with my doctor a few days ago. He thinks that things with my thyroid started going south in late 2015. That means that I spent the better part of a year with a deteriorating ability to deal with stress and emotion. I started losing control and so emotions came pouring out in inappropriate ways. I suppose I should be thankful in the long run. While the past year has been fucking hell, at least now I know why I stopped feeling like my usual self. I also know how to prevent it from happening in the future. I have a checklist of things to look for so that my thyroid doesn't get so far out of whack.
It is likely that the issues with my thyroid also accelerated the progression of my diabetes. Again, the diabetes part suck, but better to know now when I can make lifestyle changes, as opposed to five or more years from now, when those changes would be harder and the damage further along.
However, the final positive thing that came out of this negative experience is that I have had to face the fact that my emotional coping mechanisms are deeply flawed. I was in a relationship that was feeding this part of my soul that I didn't even know was hungry. Unfortunately a number of factors (many of them presumably related to my health, emotional and physical) have ended that relationship. That has been difficult, because unlike most relationships, where the emotions were tightly controlled and so the loss didn't cut too deeply, my physical issues put my heart into a position to connect to someone emotionally. I can't remember the last time I cared so much that a relationship ended. I don't mean to say that other relationships didn't affect me, but mostly I would shrug and pick up with someone new. I just turned off the emotions and moved on as quickly as possible. I took the end of my second marriage hard, but that had a lot more to do with the financial repercussions and how hard it was on my children. I was mostly relieved that my husband was gone.
One of the complaints from this most recent ex: there wasn't enough of an emotional connection between us. I wish they knew how frustrating and hurtful that feels, although I now understand what they mean. I was not really capable of connecting with someone at a deeply emotional level, I lack the skill or even the understanding. Despite everything, my theyfriend is right, I have wavered between desperately wanting to know how to express emotions and acting like they were something detestable and better avoided. Since avoiding them makes life easier, I mostly have just avoided them. Let me tell you, this whole having feelings about someone is dreadfully inconvenient. (There are like three people who get that joke, so just trust me, it's hilarious.)
I suppose, like my thyroid issues, at least now I have a checklist of things to look for in my relationships. I am not sure how someone explains to another person, "Hey, I really like you. I know it doesn't seem that way, but I do." I suppose I could try writing really sappy love letters or something. I don't know. It's easy to record stuff on this blog. I am just writing to myself. I tried writing stuff to my previous relationship, but it never seemed to make things better. I suppose that is the part I can pin on them, but honestly, I don't know anymore.
As I pull all of this emotional crap apart, it's really easy to decide it was all my fault and just figure that I ruined the relationship. I have considered asking them if I can go over some of this with them. I thought about it and then realized that if we could talk for ten minutes without it descending into a "you said/I said" conversation, it would be a miracle. I can't figure why this time would be different than the umpteen times we tried to talk from September to December. I suppose it's just one of those things, that the relationship is simply over, but at least I can take the things I learned to the next one.
But going back to yesterday's post, I wonder if I am letting fear of rejection prevent me from what could be a beneficial interaction. Or maybe I just don't want to let go, so I am looking for an excuse to talk to them again.
But as I mentioned at the start of this post, the last good thing to come from this mess, I discovered, why David Bowie held such appeal to me growing up and to this day. According to Dr. Riggio, "Bowie had an extraordinary ability to convey emotions to others...". Music has always been the one way I can truly express emotions to other people. Lyrics, chords, timing, music has the nuance and depth that allowed me to make sense of emotional expression. Of course it does, my father was a concert pianist. I can't remember him ever saying, "I love you, Rachel." I do remember him saying, "Ok, squirt, I want you to listen to this part, can't you just feel the blossoms in the the music? What is Vivaldi trying to make you feel?" Bowie's music showed what emotions looked like and felt like. Bowie expressed feelings I don't know how to show.
So today's music is sung by David Bowie, but it is a cover. I have always loved this song, because it feels like flying. However, Bowie's version captures what dancing feels like to me, when I feel like I'm flying with my partner. Dancing, the one place where all my emotional expression and then some could come out and people just smiled and noted what life I brought to whatever sort of dancing I did. Dancing is the only place where I have ever felt free to fully express my emotions.
No comments:
Post a Comment