Emo-maniacal

Your emotions will betray you.

This is something I've heard spoken in a variety of different ways over the last couple of months.  After the nth time, I realized maybe I should pay attention.  I tend to take pride in the fact that I lack a few traditionally female qualities.  You're not going to get emotional outbursts from me and if you need sympathy, you're better off looking elsewhere.  I'll listen, but my responses will be honest and occasionally more blunt than some would like.  I attribute that to growing up in a household of "suck it up" (my mom was an army brat).  I don't coddle, I don't wallow, and I certainly don't break down.  Well, at least not publicly. 

There have been times in my life where I get focused on reality...well...sucking.  All I can see is what is missing and I begin to live in fear of what these missing things could lead to, or not lead to, down the line.  I obsess about what I should have done differently or why when I think I did everything right things still turned out a certain way.  I literally analyze the implications of each way I've responded to inconsequential conversations.  Crazy, right??  This is when I realize my emotions might not be falling out of my eyeballs, but they are most definitely present and swirling around my brain like a dead fish in a toilet bowl (and just about as useful as that, too).  In these moments, I feel completely schizophrenic.  Logic and emotion are at war with one another, and emotion is so much easier to give in to.  My emotions steal away my value, my self-confidence and my joy but leave a clearly defined path to a barren wasteland existence.  My logic tries to restore those things, but still leaves a sense of uncertainty.  What's a girl to choose - a barren wasteland or a question mark?  Well, Ms. Logical, this is when you fail - epic fail.  Logical reasoning chooses certainty.  Barren wasteland it is! 

My emotions will betray me.  What has followed these words has been, "when your emotions are in control, hold tight to what you know to be true."  Hmmm.  Truth: I am loved eternally and unconditionally regardless of what my feelings tell me.  Truth: there is a plan for my life even if I'm Magoo-ing it up.  Truth: I am fallible, so maybe I should trust one who is not.

Does this mean my schizophrenia is cured?  Nope.  However, I will work it out because I have truth to stand on, so those question marks don't carry as much weight and that wasteland loses its appeal in light of the confidence truth brings.  I have to choose truth above all else because it's right.  It's always right.