Learning How to Feel Again

I've noticed lately that emotions don't come as readily as they once did. Perhaps it's a little bit of "advancement beyond puberty" and a little mix of a bunch of different factors. But things just don't touch deep all that often. It really takes some stopping and reflecting to raise emotions like saddness, loss, pain... and empathy, which has been the hardest, as it is the most frequently appropriate.

I forgot to listen to the message my father left me tonight in which he let me know his father had passed away. My grandfather. The day I move from the apartment 4 blocks from where he was born, he passes along peacefully as well. Synchronicity.

I read the email first. And took it like any other. Check that one, move to "idealist's daily digest," wander back to that email from Andrea re. babysitting. Without really registering beyond "okay, good to know." What's UP with that?

It wasn't until I then called my voicemail to listen to my dad's message that I really started to feel it. But more in listening to his voice and imagining how he must be feeling as opposed to my own feelings.

I never really knew my grandfather.

But imagining my own father passing away is like a huge knife slicing through me. According to the enneagram, I am a "self-preserving" type... and since my father is so much of who I am, losing him would be like... well... losing a parent. I guess it doesn't much matter what type you are.

I'm left feeling... relatively the same. Wanting more to read his book. Wanting definitely to talk to my dad and be there to support him. Wanting to go to bed.

I wonder if it'll hit later on. After all, I am living in his childhood city. Surrounded by the things he saw growing up, albeit different after 70 years at least. I feel like certain places, whether or not I know he knew them, should resonate with me. Should open up that center part that can feel what it's like to know I'll never see him again, or get the monthly updates from Ruth, or hear my dad's latest recollections of his own dad's fantasy world, dancing ladies, the lottery, lawyers, and all.

Or maybe it'll be looking at his picture and seeing my own dad in his visage. And just imagining that. See, there. That did it. A momentary welling up, clutching... a feeling.

By all accounts, I try to avoid conflict. But I don't like when that means I also avoid feeling anything at all.

off to bed on this day, April 27, 2008. The day my last grandparent passed away. Rest in Peace, Grandpa Alan. My good thoughts are with you in your transition to whatever is beyond.