2PhatGeeks.com

When I was younger I thought I felt the world.

I don’t mean so much the earth beneath my feet or the wind on my face or the sun in the sky; but I felt emotions, I held great empathy with people. I loved deeply, was moved easily, and was hurt just as deeply.

Remembering childhood moods or even teenage outlooks now, looking back from here? It seems almost like we were insane doesn’t it? How easily we could just fly with the smallest compliment then turn around and crash so very hard at the smallest negative quip. Our egos and emotions were fragile beginning little-things in our chests as children and teenagers; we hadn’t learned how to grow a shell around our hearts.

I’m nearing thirty and the closer I creep toward the supposed big three-oh the more I have been reflecting on how I was, how I wanted to be, and how I turned out.

There’s such an amazing divide between all of it and I am a little amazed at how entirely different I turned out to be, how different I am.

I’ve built my shell firmly around my heart and emotions. Instead of harboring heart break for longer periods of time, harsh words spark small little fires of anger and then in just a few days, fade. Instead of keeping things which make me maudlin or angry close to me, I have learned to push them away and keep them on the outside of my shell. I am still terribly empathetic; I cry during the sad parts in movies, I cry when other people are moved to tears and I cry when being moved with the plight of others.

But now, I don’t feel other things so deeply. I wonder really, if during the creation of this shell that I’ve mistakenly filtered out some of the things I should have let through.

I remember laughing louder, longer and stronger when I was younger. I remember laughing until my stomach hurt, tears came then hiccups following. I remember loving with everything I had in my heart, being in love with the stars as well as the moon, spending nights below a black sky that never ended just to listen to the music of crickets and watch the sparkle of stars.

A friend of mine, youthculture, calls it magic. And not the wriggling fingers sort of magic, but the everyday magic we had when we were children, when everything was endlessly fascinating and the world pretty much laid at our feet.

I wonder then, if, over the years of building my shell to protect my heart from crueler words that I’ve mistakenly blocked away this simple magic.

The question I have for you is: would you tear away your shell if you have one? Or would you tear it down only to rebuild it in a manner to let the right things through?

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