Having feelings...

The other day I was talking to a friend of mine. She had a lot on her mind and told me about all the upsetting situations she had to deal with and how bad she felt. And I was thinking: is it really that terrible to have feelings? I may be totally wrong, but we embrace being happy, why is it we feel universe is not on our side, just because we feel sad? An upsetting situation is one thing, that is a problem which has to be dealt with, but to focus on the feelings you have to the situation, rather than the actual problem just seems… erroneous, to me. Kind of a double-edged issue that. What is most upsetting of the two: the problem or the feelings it stirrers?

Believe me: I have felt every feeling I know of. (Being a woman I know about a LOT of different feelings, and every shade of them too.) And just in case I forgot about any of them I searched the net for a list of feelings. All the websites I found operated with a list of 7 – 11 basic feelings, and all of the basic feelings have a range of intensity to them. The list of feeling words is pretty extensive, but our basic feelings are: Joy, Interest, Surprise, Fear (anxiety), Anger, Sadness and Disgust.

Many people are like drama queens, we read them as someone who feels too much. All the time! Their mood and their acting out, makes them kind of unpredictable and a lot of work to relate to. They express that the sadness and anger in their life prevent them from having the happy life they want. Some just want to be satisfied, on every level, regardless of how they affect people in their social circle. They over indulge and damage their relationships; it is like as if they are indifferent to how they in the future will suffer the consequences. They act impulsively and then regret the result. Thinking about it I have never heard them apologize, but I hear them excuse themselves a lot.

Other people are more expressionless. They don’t know what or how they feel, not even when they are feeling it. Actually, I think they do know, but they just can’t find a way or words to express them in what they think would be a socially accepted way.

In many ways I think it is sad that we (read: society) say that men don’t cry. We teach our sons that they shouldn’t cry; it is a sign of weakness we don’t accept men to hold.  A result of this is that many men remain unable to express true feelings the way women often expect them to. (Funny that: even though we know for a fact men most times are unable to do so, we keep expecting them to show the same reactions we would find natural to express ourselves.) Men seem to “suck it up” and go forward even when it would have been appropriate to show some emotion (again: according to women, I think, based on what my friends tell me).

Men often say they only hold three feelings, good, bad or pissed-off. Woman often have a very differentiated feelings pallet. Woman typically have more feeling words and they understand the labels differently than most men. Maybe that is why we so often misunderstand each other. Maybe we lack the will to misunderstand each other correctly (I just love that phrasing, and use it a lot… in many situations it is very descriptive and correct).

The result is that men often fail to name how they feel. As a result they tend to do or say nothing until overwhelmed.

Or so I have been taught. I wonder: why is it so important to show emotions? Why don’t we accept that those who are entitled to have emotions towards a comment, event or situation keep them to themselves? Why do we claim the right to take part? How do we know that those who seem expression- or emotionless are not even more affected than others? Just wondering…

Then again, not everyone experiences feelings in the same way. Past experience, beliefs, values, and qualities play a role in how we perceive what happens to us. When hurt in the past many don’t instantly trust whoever coax out positive feelings in them: Feelings similar to the feelings which exposed us to be vulnerable before. Some protect themselves so much they appear shut off emotionally. Others mourn their loss and then throw themselves back into the quest for emotionally interplay with compatible soulmates. Whether they are of creative, friendship or romantic nature… or any other kind of relationship we depend upon.

I think most would agree that feelings are either negative or positive.Some feelings are protective. The feeling in your gut that tells you this is dangerous: our intuition.

Courage is not the lack of fear, it is the ability to fully see the situation, but to take action even though it represent real danger. Othrwise it wouldn't be brave, would it?

Positive feelings can help create and expand friendships and working relationships. Negative feelings can warn you to avoid dysfunctional relationships and abusive situations.

(I am not going to start the arguments on this one, but we all know the women who walk into doors every other day, and fall down the stairs in weekends… they know they live in a relationship not good for them, BUT they love him.)

To feel good is the best thing ever. There is nothing in the world which can beat that, regardless of living conditions. But… why is it so bad to feel sad or angry or insulted or angry? If we only felt good, how could we appreciate it if we didn’t know otherwise?

Do you know and feel your feelings? Are feelings your friends or do they just cause you a lot of trouble?

housewives back in the days

Back in the days, when I was a little girl, people didn’t just show themselves to just anyone in what they wore around the house.

I remember my mum riding her bike in her narrow skirt and tailored jacket, all dressed up for a trip to the store; her skirt so fashionable and smart and narrow her knees thwarted by every turn of the pedals.

The heels on her shoes cleared the asphalt with just about an inch and her hair was always impeccable, in spite of the wind. No sensual mane flowing freely in those days. No way.

In those days people dressed up and looked presentable when going to the store. Even if they were just to buy a pack of gum. The housewives in my neighborhood used to spend their days, doing their thing, wearing hair curlers, often under a very nicely tied scarf, in case they had to rush off to run some errand.

The hasty visit to the bathroom to remove the hair curlers, run a brush through their hair and then spray it with hairspray, hard as enamel (and smelling like it too), was a common ritual before leaving the house or open the door when someone unexpectedly rang the doorbell.

The exception was for those daily set chores like picking up the mail (at a set hour), hanging laundry (I don't even have a line, I have a drying tumbler) and other things they had to do just outside the house, where they didn’t risk meeting anyone other than other housewives, looking and wearing the exact same thing they did themselves.

They wore aprons and house coats, protecting their clothes from getting stained or wet when cooking and cleaning and polishing.

I remember the lemony smell of furniture polish and the odour of pine from the soft soap; which was used to clean just about everything. They didn’t have spray-and-mop, no wet wipes, no deodorizing air freshener: In those days they didn’t need it because the house was clean and smelled like it.

They didn’t have an income themselves, but to a large extent they administered their husband’s income. Making ends meet. And someone was always at home when the kids got back home from school. They did a tremendous contribution to family, local environment, community and society, taking care of not just their own family, but keeping an eye on everybody they could see when looking out their windows or from their garden.

Today I get the impression at home mums are very busy outside the home: going to lunches, training or whatever they feel like doing when they have time on their hands.

I miss the mums from my childhood. I miss feeling secure and taken care of, and at the same time I sometimes wonder if they were happy?

I mean, today we take it for granted that women in Norway have a job of some sorts. When I was a kid a house cost 4 times one average income. Today an average house costs approximately 4 times two average incomes. A family needs two incomes to have the same standard of living as they did 30+ years ago.

We don’t bother to dress up to go to the store, or to have impeccable hair at all times (not even at work!), we drive everywhere and instead of protecting our clothes from occasional stains we change clothes, choosing from our extensive wardrobes.

We know all the tricks how to make house chores fast and easy… and we still end up in a stress mess wondering how to get time for it all. But we do. At the end of the day we add and subtract activities to our daily lives which makes us feel happy, and we buy whatever aid needed to help doing whatever seems like a needless waste of time. Like cleaning robots.

I know that when I was a kid, my parents remembered their childhood with the same sentimental mind I remember mine. And what we remember, and tell stories about, are most often the people who used to surround us.

They say everything was better before… not sure before what, but I do know it was before something.