The Emotional "Norm"

Are emotions weird or what?  One minute I'm happy and the next I don't know what to do with myself.  It's been a roller coaster of emotions since being in Peru and I'm not even that emotional of a person!  Seriously, I don't know how boys deal with girls.  How do girls even deal with girls?!  Wait...how can I even stand to deal with myself?!  It's insane.  It can be a fun insane and it can be the crappiest insane there is.

You know what stinks about emotions?  No one has the same emotion at the same time in exactly the same way.  There's no way to EVER know EXACTLY what someone is feeling like.  It's kind of a depressing thought.  People handle situations in different ways and then we (including myself of course) judge them based on how they react if it isn't the same way we would.  Then I get mad when people judge me.  Get this, I get mad when people are inconsiderate which, in turn, makes me do something slightly inconsiderate.

Being in Peru has had me thinking about a lot of things.  It's strange to see a little kid fall down and start crying.  I know that sounds ridiculous but I subconsciously thought kids in Peru should be tougher than American kids and wouldn't ever cry.  I forgot they were normal kids for a second.  I see the old women carrying loads on their backs I could NEVER carry and I wonder how they feel about that.  Are they happy with their life?  Do they wish for something more?  What kids of things to they think and feel?  I think it's human nature to wish for more no matter our situation.  Not necessarily in a bad way, just that we want to progress and keep making our lives better.

Do they feel upset when they look back on their life and see that they're in the same small town they started in?  Do they have regrets?  I wish so bad that I could talk to each one and hear their story.  I'll bet some have been in similar situations I've been in.  But at the same time I feel like my life experiences and theirs could NEVER be compared.  We could never have had the same emotions.  I've always had everything I could ever need or want.  But, what if they have too??  Their standards are surely different than mine but who's to say that because they have less they haven't always had everything they've ever dreamed of.

You want to know what's most frustrating about this whole train of thinking?  I'll never know the answer!!!!!  Even if I could talk to them I don't think I'd get it figured out.  Heck, I've lived with roommates for a year or more and I still don't understand their thinking and I know they are sure confused about mine.  I need to be less judgmental about people and their emotions.  I also need to cut myself a break.  Sometimes I feel like I shouldn't have certain emotions because it's "the norm" and I don't enjoy being "the norm." I want to be different.  I feel like showing certain emotions is a sign of weakness or lesser thinking...like conforming and not being my own person.

Well, Abigail, it's okay to be normal.  It's okay to cry when things are hard and it's okay to want to curl in a ball under a blanket and never want to come out.  It's okay to be jealous and it's okay to want to scream at the top of your lungs.  It's okay to hide your face in your pillow and it's okay to punch your pillow.

It's also okay to comfort someone when they're down, even if you have no idea what's going through their mind.  It's okay to laugh at someone's joke and it's okay to jump up and down with excitement.  It's okay to give a hug to a friend and it's okay to just remember the good times.  It's okay to do those "normal" things.......Wait, didn't I just talk earlier about how there are no "normal" emotions since we are all different and we could never know how anyone else is feeling?  Is "normal" just something we perceive in our lives or is it something real?  I feel like this post has just gone in a big circle and I apologize. 

I've come to the conclusion that we all feel the same general emotions and are hence "normal" and yet we experience them all in such different ways it makes nothing "normal."  So when we experience emotions we should embrace them as our own!  No one else is going to feel this way EVER.  There aren't many things in life that you can have just for yourself, but your emotions are all yours.  If you want to cry, then I say "go for it!"  I'm not perfect and so if, from my life experiences, I think you're crying for a dumb reason then I will most likely silently judge you.  Hopefully, as these times come up, I will remember what I've thought about today and try to be more understanding, but when you don't know what's going through a person's head it's just near darn impossible.  I don't know if this sounds like I'm rationalizing my judging of people (and maybe I am) but I'm not trying to.  I'm more trying to put into words why I think, I think the way I think. (Think is a really funny word if you say it a lot in one sentence.)

Okay, I've babbled enough without making any sense and now that I'm about to publish this I feel like I may have blogged on a similar subject previously.  Oh well.  Let me know if you have any thoughts on the matter.