Feelings

I have always thought it funny how my brother and I are left handed and my 3 younger sisters are right handed and how different all of our handwriting is. Yet we all grew up in the same house with the same parents and for the most part had the same teachers but we all learned to write differently.

The same can be said for our feelings. We all had the same experiences together as kids but since we were of different ages and stages in our lives when they happened and we look at them differently. One thought that always comes to mind for me is when my youngest sister was born. I woke up that morning and saw on the changing table already set up in my bedroom that there was a box of baby announcements missing. So I got up all excited knowing that my mom had gone during the night to have the new baby girl. I was 7. My brother and sisters they woke up in their rooms and didn't know something was different until they got to the living room and our grandmother was there.

Last night my sister and I went to my mom's to get some things for another garage sale. When I got to my mom's house and walked in, the furniture was moved and the living room was not as I left it I got upset. Not because the things were moved or changed but because I didn't know it had been done. So it was a shock. But that shock unraveled into the feeling that this emotional roller coaster is so different for all of us and one point of view is the stuff has to go and the other is the touchy feely side that I feel.

Feelings a 1974 Morris Albert song. Wo-o-o, Feelings, Trying to forget my feelings of love.
I guess the emotional baggage I have carried my whole life, the very fiber that makes up me again is feeling discounted. That is the thing that is truly upsetting. The things that matter to me that don't matter to others. Which makes me feel like I don't matter. That is not a very nice feeling.

Since I like to know why, I looked up the definition of feelings. An emotional state or reaction. So I read that some neuroscience professor believes that feelings are the brain's way of interpreting and reacting to emotions. After I got home and cried for quite a while my sister called me and she said that this stuff upsets her to but she has to work and puts on her smile and moves on. Well I do to. I try really hard not to let the feelings stop me from living. I am not terminally sad but to some it may seem that way. Just at this time in my life my mortality and the fact that I never had any children and there will not be anyone that looks at my things with the memories I have for my mothers is what really is getting me down.

I watched a movie the other night under the recommendation of my favorite movie buff friend called "Hello my name is Doris". Well Doris and I have had some similar situations in our lives. The movie starts at her mother's funeral you know the one after she has taken care of her mom, her entire life. And her brother brings up the fact that now that mom has passed on Doris there is no need for you to keep that big house and all the stuff in it on Staten Island. They were still at the funeral. He sets her up with a life coach to help her and she goes to visit but isn't ready to part with her mother's things. But her brother seeing the money they could make off the house pushes for the sale. Pushes so much that he brings the life coach to the house one morning unannounced. Which totally devastates Doris. Now this reaction I know. My mother hated change so much when you changed anything for better or worse she hated it. I don't hate that there was a change. I just need to be for warned. Which I think is so that I can prepare myself for the feelings that I have in regards to the loss of my mother and that they are so different from others.

My brother has not been like her brother in the movie. My brother tried and wanted to keep the house. And we all were aware that the things in the house had to be thinned out even if one of us was going to live in the house. So, back to the movie. The part that really got me was when her brother brought the life coach over unannounced and the sister-in-law who has no regards for Doris's feelings just threw her hands up as though Doris is being selfish that this home that was hers not someone elses and she is not ready to change. After Doris throws a temper tantrum the sister-in-law leaves and the brother says, "Doris, I am very disappointed with you." And this is when I felt like Doris and I had a true connection. She says, "You are disappointed in me?" She had taken care of their mother her whole life. He lived his. He went to college and got married. She didn't and that makes her mad and sad. He doesn't knows the things she gave up to do what she felt was the right thing to do.

Well Doris she does clean out the house and sell it. And so are we. There are other parts to the movie but what I have mentioned was the parts I related to. Sally Field portrayed my feelings perfectly.

I will work on my knee jerk reaction that I don't matter to others. And I will try not to worry about life after I am gone.