E – Emotions

What is your superpower?  Mine is emotions.  Does that make me like Wonder Woman or She-ra?!  If you do not know who either of those women are, you must immediately research these super-heroines before continuing to read the blog today.  I would say that I am in a particularly emotional time in my life at the moment.  However, I also feel that I am always at a particularly emotional time in my life.  Why is that?  I joke that God gave me extra emotions (which you may have heard me mention before), but I am not really joking.  I believe that some of us are just more emotional.  We do not possess more emotions, as there are only a set amount of types of emotions in human existence.  My emotions though seem to be exponentially more potent than most others I know.  So I am going to go ahead and call it a superpower to make myself feel better (because I need to feel better because I am emotional).  Any other emotional superheroes out there?!  Even if your superpower is not emotions, you have something which you possess in abundance or you have a great skill.  So congratulations, you are exceptional!!!

Now that we all feel better about our excessive extra-ness, let keep moving.  My last blog was about how I really do not like moving, so no surprise, that is where my emotions are falling right now.  Purging is one of my favorite things though during the moving process.  I love to just get rid of stuff that is cluttering up my life.  So far I have purged a ton during this process.  The other night I was going through old papers, bills, files and random stuff.  I am a pretty organized person so I had my file box and a literal box full of papers that have moved with me from my last couple residences.  I did not realize it had been so long since I had gone through all these papers.  I mean, I have lived where I am for the last three years, but a lot of the contents went back like six or seven years.  Which I guess is good if you are trying not to get audited by the IRS and you keep every single paper you have been sent.  After I got over the initial horror of how old some of this stuff was, my emotions started to set in.  There were some pictures, notes, cards that I kept, of which I do not keep a lot.  It was interesting what I kept and even more interesting trying to remember why I kept some of them.  Some were obvious keepsakes pictures of family, friends, babies and weddings, but then there were also the pictures of people I knew that had broken up or gotten divorced.  There were a couple of eulogies in there as well.  So sure all of that was a little emotional, to be expected.  I did pretty good with those, I just acknowledged what I wanted to keep and kept it moving.  Then there were cards and a couple notes.  I knew which ones I wanted to keep without even reading them.  I do not think I could have read them anyway because I really would have lost it and I had a task that I had to keep on schedule.  The awareness that I knew I was going to get emotional on the pictures and notes made sense.  I knew sentiment would take over so I was mentally prepared to handle my emotions.  What I was not prepared for though was the interesting part.  Those make for the best stories and the best lessons.

There were a lot of old bills in the box, before I went fully paperless on all that stuff (calm down people, I recycled all the papers and I am saving the planet one bill at a time).  I mean there were a lot of bills and statements, but more than those there were a lot of collections notices…I mean A LOT.  As I sifted through the remnants of over half of a decade of my finances I was taken aback.  During the time frame of all these bills, I had multiple broken relationships, one of which I had planned marriage and on being a step mother to two beautiful children, another of which was a long term affair with a very married man, yet another where I fell in unrequited love and several others that were just very poor decisions that will have lasting effects on my life.  During that time, I had bills for counseling sessions where I battled and overcame clinical depression.  I kept the notice for when I had my electricity shut off because I had to make the decision whether I was going to eat or have heat in the month of January one of those years.  There were the piles, literally piles, of student loan promissory notes.  Repayment notices for said loans, which ultimately led to collections and wage garnishment notices for an education that was supposed to prevent financial ruin.  Credit score notices that went further and further down each month with each late payment and of course from those that had to go unpaid altogether. 

A sea of bills brought up all of the emotions from those days.  During that same time frame I also went through a financial planning course and got an understanding of my debt.  I had always been pretty responsible with my money, I was good at balancing my checkbook and I knew exactly how much money I had.  When my account would overdraw, I knew almost every single time that it would happen.  So I knew how much money I had, but it was when I realized how much money I did not have that my world changed.  Through the financial planning course I had a homework assignment to figure out how much debt that I had.  Well, let me tell you right now, I was sick just thinking about it.  Perhaps this is too much information, but I do not really get nauseous.  There have only been a few times in my entire life where I have actually thrown up.  All of those were while I had the flu, with the exception of one other time in college with my friend Jose Cuervo Silver (that was a go big or go home moment, ask me about that another day).  With that said, I sat down and figured out how much debt I had, which predominately consisted of student loans, and I literally felt nauseous.  My table was a fold up card table and I remember sitting there surrounded by all the numbers that I added up and I truly thought I was going to throw up all over those calculations.  What happened?!  How did this happen?  Was this not the exact thing that I did not want to happen?  Why hdd I struggled so hard?  Why had I lived on pennies my entire adult life?  Why did I go back to school?  I thought the reason for my education was so that I would never be in this position.

Tears streamed down my face as all the memories came back, all from a cardboard box.  Who knew a cardboard box filled with bills could invoke such an immense response?  As I remembered the way I felt over those years and reflected on what I had gone through relationally, emotionally, physically and mentally something came over me.  Was it a superpower or was it supernatural?  My superpower of emotions were already in full swing, so it was not that.  There was something greater that was coming to realization for me.  Throughout the tears, the depression, the pain, the sorrow, the loss, the confusion and the frustration over the years there was more.  I did not die of a broken heart, when I thought that I could never go on.  My life did not end because of the poor decisions I had made in bad relationships.  There was always food on the table, a roof over my head, clothing on my back and all my actual needs were always meet despite the finances.  How did everything work out?  I do not want to minimize anything that I have gone through, sometimes I do that because I know that there are so many out there that have worse situations.  For me though, my life has been a challenge, especially over the span of time this box of papers held.  Through each and every step I have relied on God’s plan for me, reminded myself of Jesus’ sacrifice for me on the cross and listened to the voice of the Holy Spirit guiding me through each thing I have gone through.  Let me tell you right now, I have not always done it well, I have wavered and doubted, but in my soul I knew that no matter what was happening, there was a greater plan. 

My emotions are all over the place constantly, but they help me to understand greater God’s constancy.  Everything changes and the unexpected will come.  Throughout all of the emotions, the good, the bad, the happy, the sad and the wretched ratchet God has been there for me.  I am so beyond thankful to have gone through every single thing that I have because I know that it is for a greater purpose, a purpose greater than I.  My emotions, my superpower, sometimes make life more challenging that is for sure.  Yet if I let them, my emotions really are super because they make me realize how truly grateful I am for it all.

“Trust in the Lord with all your heart
And do not lean on your own understanding.
In all your ways acknowledge Him,
And He will make your paths straight.” Proverbs 3:5-6 (NASB)

"Do not worry then, saying, 'What will we eat?' or 'What will we drink?' or 'What will we wear for clothing?' For the Gentiles eagerly seek all these things; for your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. So do not worry about tomorrow; for tomorrow will care for itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.” Matthew 6:31-34 (NASB)