When people think about emotional availability, it’s often in the sense of something to work towards. A skill to grow or master. I see so many influencers and youtube videos promoting things like meditation, stoicism, and therapy. Not to say that these shouldn’t be incorporated into your everyday schedules, because they are in fact very helpful for improving your life. However, in my eyes, I think doing this work is secondary to something much more powerful and accessible; and that something is life.
Life will thrust you into situations that you don’t expect, and how you decide to respond to these situations will change your inner being, for better or worse.
I think I can safely say that I’ve always been a sensitive person, even as a child, and like a lot of people growing up I was taught to suppress that sensitivity. Showing emotion was seen more as a weakness, something to be mocked, not just for men, but for everyone, although, in my experience, an emotional man was much less likely to be tolerated by others than an emotional woman. Men had to have machismo when I was growing up.
I didn’t think that was very fair. I remember being a kid and asking myself questions like, “Why is it so hard for people to just be kind?” “Why do so many people have so much less than others?” “Why can’t I show everything that I feel?” The reason always seemed to be “because that’s just how it is.” It didn’t make sense to me.
As a kid I understood that being kind made me feel good AND it made others happy too. To me, that was something that I should logically gravitate towards, but that was often not the case. I was always reminded that the world was full of people who wanted to take advantage of me, people who were overly competitive or arrogant, and people who would lie, cheat, and steal to get what they wanted. Being kind was naive.
By Michał Parzuchowski on Unsplash
After a while, that child-like gravitation toward being kind or what I thought of as being a “good” person slowly withered away and was replaced with an anxiety or fear that I had to protect what was mine under any circumstances. It wasn’t effective to be kind. There wasn’t time to be a good person, you had to be prepared for the monsters lurking in the dark. What a tall order for a child! That anxiety and mistrust of people stayed with me throughout my childhood, into my adolescence, and eventually into my adult life. And because of those experiences, now I have to do the work I mentioned in the beginning. And I do. Or at least I try to as often as possible. But again, the work is secondary for me.
When I think back on my life I can pinpoint the exact moment I became emotionally available again. And it wasn’t through meditation or listening to some guru on the meaning of existence. It was because life happened.
When I was 28 years old I adopted a cat. I named him Fry because I loved the show Futurama and he was a goofy boy. He knew exactly how to charm anyone he met and when my roommate took in her stray kitten, Leela, he was so patient and kind with her. He was the epitome of innocence and I loved him very much. Two years later, shortly after his 3rd birthday, he was diagnosed with FIP, or Feline infectious peritonitis. A disease in young cats that is almost always fatal.
As I said before, I was always a sensitive person, but by this time I had mastered suppressing most of my emotions, and was often seen as stoic or even heartless at times. Even as I learned of his diagnosis I carried on with life as usual, occasionally breaking down but only in private and only for a few moments. Then the day came when I had to put him to sleep. As my best friend and I laid him on the table, after the vet had closed their offices, I sang You Are My Sunshine to him one last time, then the euthanasia took place. I didn’t leave his sight as he was injected so he wouldn’t feel alone and I watched the life leave his eyes.
That was one of the most painful experiences I’ve ever gone through and a turning point in my life. Even now I’m crying about it. From then on I didn’t hide my emotions as much. I maybe even over corrected for a while, but I felt it was necessary to let the people I care about know how grateful I was for them. Instead of hardening my heart to the coldness and unfairness of the situation, I chose to leave the wound open for a while, and began to shut out the shame and regret I was used to feeling for showing emotion.
This is how I became more emotionally available. I’m sorry if you were expecting a how to, but to be honest, life is the best and most important teacher. Not some guru on youtube or even Medium. It’s the situations we can’t escape that will change us the most. For me, I think Fry’s death changed me for the better. I like to think he came into my life to help me grow. Be a little more like him, you know? And for that I’m grateful.
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This post was previously published on medium.com.
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