There's just something contemplative and nostalgic about aging another year. Each year, around the time of my birthday, I find myself caught between feelings of anticipation and dread. Anticipation for the future, for what is to come in a new year and season of life. And on the flip side, feelings of dread or more accurately, fear of the unknown; fear of what I'm losing in the act of aging. My feelings toward aging are deep, conflicting, and turbulent. Did I mention I'm a four on the enneagram?
Last week, I turned twenty-three. This age has prompted a considerable amount of reflection in the past several weeks. It's not really an important age; it doesn't quite hold a candle to the excitement of eighteen or twenty-one, nor the milestones of twenty-five or thirty. But to me, twenty-three is both still quite young, and notably older. (Emphasis on the -er.) Twenty-three has seen some life. She isn't as bright-eyed or innocent as twenty, yet she has no idea the struggles in store for, say twenty-seven. She remains hopeful and proud to have made it this far, to have grown a thick skin and rougher edges than ever before.
In all of this dissection of a new age, I have continually been reminded of a specific and unfortunately cringeworthy moment of my current shedding age. I don't necessarily want to share this experience, but nevertheless, I write because I feel and I share because I've healed. I feel as though those reading this may relate and even be encouraged, and that to me makes all my discomfort in vulnerability worth it.
Last year, I spent my twenty-second birthday in Kigali, Rwanda while on the World Race traveling to and serving in eleven different countries around the world for eleven months. It was a wonderful day where my five other teammates and I had the day off of normal ministry. We spent it at a nearby hotel by the pool for some much needed time to rest and recharge, and soak up the otherwise nonexistent WiFi. One of my dear teammates had contacted my sister at home and gathered videos of my family and friends wishing me a happy birthday and surprised me with it, one of the best gifts I've ever received, and so timely at the peak of my homesickness.
I spent the day talking to friends and family and feeling really incredibly thankful for another year of life and such sweet moments that filled my heart immensely. Still, on one of the best days of my time in Rwanda and arguably the entire eleven months, I felt there was something missing.
With the time difference between two continents and thousands of miles, I spent most of the day waiting for a specific birthday message that never came. By the time we finally left the hotel that night Rwanda-time, it would have been around late afternoon in the States and I knew the message I had hoped for wasn't going to come. Of all the incredible people in my life who made that day so special for me, there was one in particular that I had really hoped to hear from and when I didn't, it broke me. We took almost an hour-long cab ride back to our host's home for the month, and I remember sitting in the back of the car listening to the saddest song I could think of at the time ("Warning Sign" by Coldplay) and just letting out a sincere, deeply-embedded, cathartic cry. I didn't make a big deal out of it so as to draw the attention of my teammates and be forced to talk about it, I rather executed a skill I have perfected over the years: silent crying. You know, the one they do in movies.
For whatever reason I didn't want to fully delve into at the time, it wasn't just that I wanted an acknowledgment of my birthday. It was that I had convinced myself that I needed this person's validation. It mattered immensely to me what this person thought of me, and to realize at that moment that he didn't at all was a blow to my heart too big to gloss over or ignore. I needed to fully feel it, so I did. I felt the sting of rejection with every part of me that night and in the days following as I tried to muddle through why the simple absence of a message wrecked me so deeply.
In the midst of all these emotions, something else came up too: shame. I couldn't believe how upset I was and I became so ashamed of it. "You're twenty-two years old," I kept thinking. "Why are you acting like this?" Knowing my own heart and tendency to choose internal harsh judgment, I knew if a friend of mine went through this situation and reacted the same way, of course, I would be sympathetic outwardly. But, on the inside there would more than likely be a part of me thinking, "she just needs to grow up".
As a culture, we have mistakenly equated maturity with emotionlessness. And if we are going to be anything as adults, most of us want to be mature. I wanted to be this exceptionally grown-up twenty-two-year-old adult who didn’t need the validation of others. And who especially didn't show emotion in a situation that didn't warrant it (like someone not acknowledging my birthday).
But the reality is that of course most twenty-two-year-olds, especially women, crave the validation of others, and particularly from men. We thrive on it because we’re young. Most of us sadly will live our entire lives without the self-awareness to even recognize our need for it. Our generation is constantly criticized for being told we were special too often growing up. We watched too much Mister Rogers' Neighborhood when we were little and our parents loved us too much. We were coddled, so we're often told. And maybe that’s true because here I was on arguably one of the best days of my life absolutely crushed because a boy didn’t think of me enough to acknowledge my birthday. It was rejection and it hurt. So much that I haven’t forgotten it now a year later.
Eventually, in this specific situation, shame won over and I stifled my emotions, tired of feeling, and appearing weak for expressing them. And maybe that's why the strong memory of this moment has stayed with me for so long, because I cut my emotional processing short in order to bury my feelings and fulfill the world's definition of maturity. And this wasn't the first time shame has led me to change who I am.
I have been an incredibly emotional person for as long as I can remember, and since very early on in my childhood. Somewhere along in my childhood development, I formed the belief that I was too over-the-top, too dramatic, too emotionally intense, and I needed to tone it down in order to be accepted in relationships with others. So, I still felt everything and experienced my emotions deeply internally, but I put up a bullet-proof wall to keep it all inside and lived in fear of letting this side of me show. And here I am now as an adult, still undoing the effect of these lies on my behavior.
My emotional depth is a gift, I've come to learn. One that so many others in the world share and I've only lately begun to recognize. There is no blanket definition of emotional health or maturity that can be applied to everyone in the world. As humans, we are all different people. We are hardwired and raised with diverse backgrounds and experiences that shape who we are and how we tick. Somehow, we've allowed our culture to still influence and spread the lie that emotions are not to be taken seriously. That little girls who feel deeply and outwardly are dramatic and too much, and when these girls grow into women they're crazy, immature, and unreliable. We may even diagnose some mental or behavioral disorders because it's 2020 and we're all doctors and medical professionals out here, right?
While wearing my heart on my sleeve isn’t always my favorite thing about myself, I am thankful for it when I remember the ease and the depth with which I’m able to connect with people. I have memories of being eight, nine years old, and crying over movies and books, ages where emotional maturity and empathy are usually just beginning to develop. I don’t think I was especially “developed” or mature any more so than my peers, but I knew I was different, and at the time I felt like something was wrong with me for it. I knew the characters I watched and read about felt sad and so I felt deeply sad too.
When people share their stories with me, I am usually not even listening as much as I am feeling. Trying to feel what they feel, putting myself in their shoes, and exploring the emotions I imagine would come with it. I connect with people due to my emotional depth, and I’m so thankful for it.
I’m not naive enough to believe I have this great platform or that people pay attention to what I say, but I know that someone is reading this right now. It is because of that I say: you’re valid. Whatever you’re feeling, whatever you're not feeling, regardless, it is valid. I’m proud of you for falling apart, for feeling deeply in order to discern truth and action and I’m proud of you for not. It’s my prayer that you find security, that these things that have hurt you and wrecked you and affected you enough to present problems in your life today, that you gain the ability to see them at face value. These things are not you. They are not who you are, they do not dictate your character, nor your strength, nor your ability to grow or love or be loved. I’m speaking this over myself just as much as I am over others.
Just over a year ago now, I wrote a blog called "22 Things I Learned Before 22". Even in the midst of celebrating so much growth in my life as I spent a year going deeper with the Lord than ever before, there was still a place I couldn't go. It took me months to even be able to speak about how I was really feeling on my twenty-second birthday. Vulnerability in retrospect is somehow easier. It's infinitely easier to talk about feelings in the past tense than it is to open up and address something you haven't worked your way through completely yet. My heart was on my sleeve that day, (and still is today,) the difference between last year and this new one I'm stepping into being the shame I allowed to infect my heart and mind.
Today, I know, believe, and am speaking the truth that though they do not always equate to absolute truth, feelings are real, valid, and a gift rather than a weakness.
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