Sensible Sentiment

I used to think all feelings, except happy feelings, were evil. And then even some of those happy ones were just a bit too much, too.

Tears, even joyful ones, were immature. Being too expressive was foolish.

I believed emotional people were unstable and thus unable to clearly rationalize.

But then I broke. For two straight months, I couldn't think. The sudden onslaught of inward pain numbed me and my body reacted by going into shock from exposure to foreign feelings I'd once refused to know.

And for that short time I didn't care about what I'd once thought of emotions—they owned me and all reason and logic were gone.

But as my senses slowly returned, I hated myself for giving in to the emotions that gripped all of me. I'm not sure how I would have got through it if a couple of my friends hadn't told me over and over that, it was okay to grieve.

With my friends support, I let myself feel my way through those dark months and I let my brain just die for a while.

Though it was hard, it was what needed to happen in order for me to grow. It was what I needed so that I could learn to balance being both rational and emotional. Through that time I even coined a new phrase: Emotional Rationalist.

I learned how to both think and feel at once.

Or at least I hope so . . . I must admit that at times I still think that too many tears are immature. Now that I am stronger mentally than I've ever been in my whole life I sometimes fall back into the old habit of believing emotions are pure evil.

Yet as much as I think the world needs a rude awakening to more sensibleness and less sentimentality, I've learned that without balance too much of a brain and too little of a heart is equally dangerous, especially when despair crashes down on a person in such full force.

We shouldn't aspire to be cold-hearted Sherlock Holmes. The world needs compassionate, kind, thoughtful Mollies.

And being sentimental doesn't have to equate insensibility.

For even, the most rational of us have something and someone we hold dear. Aren't those things a show of sentiment at it's finest, despite the rational?

I would like to think of myself as more practical and minimalistic. I don't need much. I don't attach much value to objects. In fact, I love to throw away things. But . . . even I at my most logical moments have things that trigger both good and bad memories. I only have one object that brings bad memories, but I can't bring myself to throw it away so I keep it hidden. I know it's irrational of me and I keep trying to throw it away. But even to look at it is hard.

And despite my bouts of decluttering, and not having much to begin with, I also have several (useless) objects that bring pleasanter memories.

I'd like to think I've learned to be sensible with a little sentiment.

I'm starting to realize that the more life I live the harder it is to just not be attached to memories, good and bad.

But how is this good? Holding onto the past, whether good or bad, doesn't it just slow me down on my process of moving forward? Even if I have accepted that feelings are sometimes necessary to process, how can sentiment ever be good?

I decided to look into what sentiment and sensible mean.

Sentiment: a view of our attitude toward a situation or event; an opinion.
Sensible: (of a statement or course of action) chosen in accordance with wisdom or prudence; likely to be of benefit.

That definition of sentiment has rocked my view. If you were to ask me what it meant I'd say, "gushy emotions about things that don't really matter but matter to you just because" which might be true . . . but that dictionary definition actually seems a bit reasonable.

I'm all for opinions, as long as they are rational.

But . . . "Is it sentiment really sensible?"

My brain wants to scream no. Or maybe that's my heart? Haha, I can't tell the difference most days.

But reason and experience are starting to tell me that it's all right. Tears have their time, as does sentiment. Logic is good—but a little bit of love gives life to facts.

And this is how I've rationalized the emotions life has bombarded onto me. This is how my brain copes with an exploding heart. This is how I'm able to process grief and inexplicable joy.

Are you more of a rational or emotional person? If you're one, how do you cope with the other? Especially all of you sentimental people, I've always wondered how you manage to not rationalize everything?