To Feel or Not To Feel, I choose the first

My friends tell me I tend to be closed off, not open up, or keep things merely topical. In fact it's what's come to be expected of me. It's not that I try to do that, but that it's my default state of being. For that matter I know I come off as cold, or very uninterested sometimes. that's not the case. From a rather young age, I taught my self to keep emotions down. You don't need them to interact with the real world, just the basics would suffice. A smile here, a frown there, an inquisitive look for when I was confused.. I can even remember the very moment at which this became a solid decision.

 It was a car ride with my parents. They were dropping me off for my first ever summer camp. A week with  out them. I was excited to tell them something about it., and all I wanted was for them to give me their attention for just a few minutes. I tried to tell them and I can just remember them getting really angry, and telling me to shut up. Now, I already had the mentality of a shy quiet kid, but when my parents yelled at me to shut up, I just...I took it hard. This was the first and last time they would do that.

 It also seems to be a family trait which I have unintentionally mastered because I picked it up earlier. This also had the side effect of limiting my ability to pick up emotions in other. I take everybody, everything at face value. what you give me is what I understand. 

If you put all this into account, you must wonder how I got through school, or anything for that matter. Friendships, relationships, family...how did I handle it. When I look back on it, I acted. being the introverted quiet kid I was, I spent a lot of time observing people, especially in different emotional states. I learned to judge a situation and the people in it, and the act out accordingly. I suppose that's how I gained the initial skill to act. 

What's ironic now is that acting, has taught my how to "feel" again, for lack of a better way of phrasing it. Well not acting alone, my friends and several people have had this effect. What I recently learned was that, to act something with the truest of emotion, you have to feel it, actually feel it. Draw from life experience and funnel it into what you are doing. I came to the realization that there is very little I have "felt" in my life. And thus, I intend to fix it, to correct what ever it is that barricades my emotions. 

You know what, emotions are conflicting, but they are also exciting, incredible, exhilarating.  I have begun to allow myself to accept what I feel. To accept how I feel about people, and not just push it away and hope it doesn't stay long. And of course, I have begun o realize many things. Mostly, that I'm an idiot but also that this is for the better. Maybe my friends will see that now, who knows. I may just not be good at expresses emotions, but I'm working on that too.