As a young child, I was quick to tears. My emotions were not tended to by my parents and, at some point, I stopped tending to them as well. To my mother, a child of Ukrainian immigrants, and my dad, an immigrant from Macedonia, life was much more pragmatic. I was taught how to behave, not necessarily how to feel. But I felt everything. I?d cry uncontrollably when faced with most things I found too daunting: swimming lessons, gymnastics, the first day of school. With no one to hold space for my big emotions, I became numb to them and followed a life path that was more passively found than actively chosen: go to university, get a job, find a man to marry, have children. I was socialized to be a nurturer in a society that was suspect of emotional women. And as a people-pleaser, I didn?t allow myself to have needs of my own. Only in the last handful of years have I been able to truly listen to and understand my emotions. I?m a 42-year old mother now managing life on my own, one that I?d been brave enough to explode and completely transform with no guarantee of success. I came out as queer from a straight marriage in my late 30s after years of ignoring and intellectualizing the feelings my mind had worked for years to override.
Don?t get me wrong, I was still emotional. I just wasn?t actually processing my feelings. They stayed there inside me, bouncing around and inevitably surfacing at an inopportune time. I used to view my emotions as enemies, as intruders I needed to no...