Switched Off

Those of us who have lived since birth with an exceptional depth of feeling, know that it is both a blessing and a curse.  For seventy years I've felt everything so deeply.  I love deeply, I feel joy deeply, I grieve deeply, I hurt deeply.  It's wonderful when I'm experiencing love or joy, wonder or creativity.  It's difficult when I'm experiencing sadness, grief or pain whether it's physical or emotional.  But who and how I am, is who and how I have always been.  I have borne it all because I know it is impossible to have the highs without the lows and until now, I've never known another way.  

 

Many things come with aging.  I've never been one to rail against getting old; it is a privilege to get old.  But as losses have accumulated, as they inevitably do, I have noticed that I have developed a heightened intolerance for pain.  Unkindness cuts more deeply.  Thoughtlessness cuts more deeply.  Grief cuts more deeply. Incivility cuts more deeply.  The things I once believed to be true in the world, are turning out not to be true.  I can no longer watch more than a few minutes of the news without realizing I understand almost nothing of the world in which we live.  None of the old rules seem to apply.  And in the midst of the insanity and cruelty we are witnessing most everywhere, something happened to my heart light - it got switched off.  Less joy, but not such excruciating pain.  I've missed the highs of creativity but I can still navigate the motions of daily living.  I can still spend hours in my kitchen, making pickles and jam.  They don't require either creativity or emotional output.  I can put on my best face and celebrate joyous events in the lives of friends as well as support them as they bury lost love ones.  It's not that I do not share their joy or sadness, but I don't feel it with the intensity I have in the past.  Perhaps this is the way most people feel - a certain numbness.  A protective shield around my wounded heart.   

 

There have been a couple of times in the last few weeks that I have felt my heart light trying to restart.  And when that's happened, I've hit the off button again.  It's easier this way.