HUMANS 101

Take a Minute for Your Emotions

Even if you don’t know what to call them

Illustrations by the author.

How are you feeling?

Please take a moment to establish your truest answer to that question. And before you try too hard to find the vocabulary, know this objective truth: feeling words are hard. Naming emotions is hard. It’s not necessary that you use the words everyone has accepted as “literally correct” when it comes to feelings. One of my most commonly used feeling words is “blob.”

There are always the classics, which offer a great place to start: happy, sad, angry. But honestly, those ones are sometimes tough to own! It’s kind of like putting on Chanel Number Five — like, everyone KNOWS this scent, but is this really MY scent? Or, am I a Big Enough Deal to pull this off? But hey, no one’s gonna judge you here: try them on. Do any of the big three feel true right now? If it’s just between you and yourself?

Let’s add “grieving” to the list, too — because usually when you’re grieving, you don’t want to call it grieving. “No one has died tragically or unexpectedly,” you say, “and so I have not earned ‘grieving.’” But I have experienced…