Feeling Too Much; What Gives?

What do you do when you just feel too much?

There's an episode of House M.D. that I always think back to whenever I have this conversation. A girl comes in after surviving a car crash, and it's slowly revealed that she has CIPA, or Congenital Insensitivity to Pain. Basically, no matter how much she was poked, prodded, or cut into, she didn't feel a thing.

I sometimes wonder if there's some of condition that's a cruel antonym of CIPA. Maybe it's being soft. Maybe it's the childhood anxiety that always simmers under the surface.

Whatever it is, I can use it productively. I'm a poet and a songwriter and a journalist, and I'm able to shine the light onto the cracks, shimmers, and crevices of people's stories.

Whatever it is, it renders me useless and fumbling and numb far, far too often.

Not too long ago, I was riddled with nausea so bellicose that I could barely peel myself out of bed. Overcome with the same dead weight of grief that sits on your chest when you've lost yourself. I had lost something for sure.

I was desperate to dig my nails under my skin and start anew, cleaning off any memory that may cling to it. To scoop out the pooling dread in my ribcage; to puke it out so horrendously that I could ensure it was gone.

There is almost always pain in feeling – I know that for sure. Whether it's the sting of embarrassment, the heaviness of regret, or the unbridled and unstoppable ecstasy with someone who finally understands your body, the pain is forever omnipresent.

Now that I'm taking the time to move slower and feel less deeply, I can catch myself. Maybe the ground doesn't crumble underneath me when a tie is cut. Maybe a part of me doesn't need to get chipped away every time bad news blows over. Maybe they didn't mean it like that. Maybe it's what they needed to do, and things carry. on.

The sun rises again, at the start of every new day, like clockwork. What a pleasure for my weary heart.