Feeler

Last night was a challenging night to put it mildly. Big feelings and not enough sleep combined to make the atmosphere electric. So today when someone made small talk with me by asking how my kids are doing, I barely mustered a deflated “well, Poppy is three years old and she’s very very three right now.”  

I don’t do small talk well. I know the appropriate response is “they’re doing great, thanks for asking!” but I as it turns out, I am not appropriate. If you ask me how I am, I’m not going to say, “I’m fine, how are you?” I’m going to say, “I’m super jazzed because I saw a beautiful heron on my drive in this morning,” or “I’m feeling kind of down because I’ve lost touch with friends I thought would be my forever people,” or “I’m pissed because my favourite radio station fired my favourite hosts and now I have to boycott the station that plays the best music,” or “I’m scared that I’m not doing enough. Every day. Am I wasting my time?” I am a feeler - and sharer - of the feelings. (I literally felt all those things this morning in the span of about 30 minutes. Feeling feelings is my super power but damn, it is exhausting.)

Yesterday I was driving Poppy to daycare when I heard her start to sob. I asked her what was wrong (we’d just been saying good morning to the buses and everything was fine) and she told me she was sad because of something that had happened a week ago. In the moment it wasn’t significant, her little buddy had accidentally bonked her with his toy and it startled her. But a week later, she needed to talk about it and have a little cry to process her feelings. I have never felt closer or more similar to my daughter (or more sympathetic to my husband for that matter) than in that moment.