Are You in Touch with Your Feelings

Recently, I became almost enraged when someone I had counted on to be there dropped the ball. Not only did they drop the ball but they ran off the field as if we had never agreed to be playing a game to begin with. I was left shocked and saddened by this revelation of a person I thought I knew.

I’m one of those individuals who would like to believe that I am very much in touch with my feelings and that I wisely choose my friends and associates. So when I got really angry about this person not stepping up to the plate and being there for me like I had almost assumed they would be, it was a blow not only to my ego but it made me question this persons commitment to our friendship.

Without needing to get into the specifics, sometimes people can really disappoint. You think that someone’s your friend one day and then a week later you find out that they’ve been creeping around with your boyfriend or girlfriend. And sometimes the people you think you know the most are the ones you know least.

It’s usually after the betrayal that you have time to think back and retrace where it was you went wrong. You wonder how was it you even thought to trust such a person. Why had you not heeded the red flags from the beginning? How could you not know any better after all that you had been through? And why had you even tried to give this person a chance when deep down inside you knew you’d be taking a risk.

These are the hard times. They hurt like hell because once again someone who you decided to trust lets you down. It took me a few days before it dawned on me that my anger, which I tried to politely disguise, was a residual anger dating back to my childhood. Anger, that I had originally harbored towards my parents had, once again, taken on a life of its own and I be damned if I would let anyone else disappoint me.

Like I had been many times in college, in different relationships, social gatherings, work settings, and while trying to mold my own network of friends … I was once again surprised, dismayed, and accepting of how my feelings were an intrinsic part of who I am and who I sought to become. And how even an honest expression of hurt, by way of a non-consuming anger, could do a lot of good in keeping me in touch with my feelings.