The Friday Currently 013: Slow Down

There’s a LONG (as in, tl;dr) ramble at the end of this, so I’ll make it quick.  It’s Friday, and I am C U R R E N T L Y . . .

R E A D I N G  Anna Karenina as part of my 2015 Book Challenge.  Everyone else read it in uni, but my ModLit professor had us read Crime and Punishment instead so consider this my “Book I should have read in school.”

So far, Anna annoys me, but the book’s not bad so I keep going.

W R I T I N G  songs! I sent in my Elements Music Camp submission yesterday.  Fingers crossed that I make it to the live audition rounds at least!

L I S T E N I N G to the Inside Out official movie soundtrack…but more on that later.

W A T C H I N G nothing much? Been too busy with the whole 2015 Book Challenge thing.

F E E L I N G  slightly worried. Traffic’s bad and I have to head home and pack for my Pampanga trip…plus get up early enough to make it to Makati by 8am.  What is #TeamNoSleep?

S M E L L I N G  canned air.  Still at the office due to traffic.  Mum’s probably not even close.

W E A R I N G  Muji chambray shirt, Banana Republic pleated cotton summer skirt, Call It Spring nude pumps (that i had to buy on lunch break because my actual shoes gave out), and a Uniqlo belt–basically casual Friday.

L O V I N G  The Berry Company juices!

W A N T I N G this weekend to officially start. Payday Friday + rain = terror highways.  Oh Metro Manila.

W I S H I N G I was in bed, reading, with any device where I can get messages FAR FAR AWAY FROM ME because sometimes I need to be alone.

T H I N K I N G  about feelings.

DISCLAIMER: This is not a spoiler-free ramble.  If you haven’t caught Pixar’s latest offering, or read a summary of it on some Wiki somewhere, do not proceed further.  Watch the movie, then come back and read this.  Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

If you can’t already tell from the GIF, I watched Inside Out last Sunday with Maman. The film was amazing, both in terms of compelling, complex story (in fact, I’m still wrapping my head around it) and (of course) Kleenex rating.

“Who’s your friend who likes to play…” 

What I liked most about Inside Out was how it treated the subject of “always being happy.”  As someone who, for a long time, struggled with the idea that “Nobody likes you when you cry,” I needed that message, especially since, for the past few weeks, I’ve been on the verge of what I can only call crazy.

Like a lot of other people, I’ve internalized the idea that Sadness–with all its outward signs of crying, breaking down, and feeling blue–is irrational, and immature.  When it comes to maturity, I’m admittedly worse than most, so I’ve tried to project as many outward signs of being a “grown-up” as possible, to compensate. 

Unfortunately, wanting to curl into a ball and clap my hands over my ears is not one of these signs, which has led me to spending most of the past month waging war against myself: fighting back the urge to break down and cry while at the same time trying to understand why I wanted to do so.

It all came to a head when I ended up walking out of Hideaway (of course not when I was due to host) and breaking down because of some nasty Facebook comments on how the event was being organized.  I’d managed to bottle things in at first, but when one commenter suggested I should be shot (and people were liking the comment)…I lost it.

A mature person would be able to take stuff like this in stride, but in that moment I felt anything but mature–alone, terrified, lonely, lost, doomed to failure, yes, but not grown-up or professional or any of those big words I’ve treated like armor.  I was not the Ball of Sunshine, Miss Perpetual Energy, the Energizer Bunny, The Trooper, Make-it-Happen Frankie.

In short, I was none of the things people seemed to expect and/or demand I should be…and in that moment I could no longer explain why.

I figured it out, though, when I watched Riley play out onscreen the “shut down” I’d experienced.  Her brain (run by frantic emotions scattered across a twisted mindscape) was in chaos, and it managing everything had become all too much.  Suddenly, Sadness’ quote at the beginning of the movie made sense to me: “Crying helps me slow down.”

(Maybe not so much the ‘obsess over life’s problems’ part, though?)

Like Riley’s big move, in the past month or so my life’s been more than a little shaken up.  The pressure to grow up, step up, and accomplish all that I felt was expected of me (as employee, as band frontwoman, as artist, as organizer of Hideaway), had finally caught up, but I was so afraid of losing momentum or being an emotional wreck/immature kid that I’d stuck to keeping it in until it all went away.

Once again, I’d refused to be brave enough to open my mouth sooner and speak up about the fact that I was in over my head, so my body did it for me.

I understand that emotional control is a big part of growing up, but what I like about Inside Out’s version of it is that it’s less about holding emotions back (or, in Joy’s case, confining them to chalk circles at the back of the control center) and more about allowing them to coexist, blend together, merge and converge.  I’m trying to grasp that all my feelings are valid, even the more primal, “negative” ones.  After all, as “Inside Out” helpfully pointed out, a healthy amount of Fear helps ensure safety, a touch of Anger can fuel passion and drive, small doses of Disgust factor into discernment, and being at peace with Sadness breeds empathy.

(It also pointed out that an overdose of Joy can result in acting like a controlling, narrow-minded, high-strung ninny…but I won’t get into that.)

So that’s it for this week’s edition of The Friday Currently.  If you read to the end, I salute you.  Hopefully next week, I would have eased back into homeostasis…and shorter blogs.  Until then, though, I remain,

~aRoamingTsinay~

The Sunday Currently was created by Siddathornton. I’ve added/subtracted categories for the sake of the narrative, and also because I’m copying the format of NothingSpaces.com.