Sometimes emotions are too much for me. Other times I feel as though I have a lack of emotions all together- I'm not feeling enough.
So I read.
I read sad things, things about characters with anxiety and panic attacks, about people loosing loved ones and how they're forced to deal with that. It makes my gut twist and my face hot and my eyes wet and it's hard but it's okay because it's not mine. When it's all well and done I can put the story down and return to my life. Sometimes I need to feel, others I need to escape.
But when I read something and I'm so invested and my stomach is tight and the sheets are too hot and I can't rip my eyes away till it's done, and I finally reach the end- satisfying hopefully. (with a happy end because why don't we pretend to be optimistic for a time) When I put it down and I'm still too tense, still too on the verge of tears and I realize the emotions were too close to my own. I've come back to reality and I can't just set the emotions aside because this time- they're real. It's too sudden. It makes everything drop and shift and then you realize you're still a mess. You didn't fix anything you just ran and hid. And what good does that do?
It doesn't.
It doesn't do anything for you.
And then I lay in bed still too hot but too upset to really move. And it's terrible. I can't go deal with my problems, they're just too much for me.
But when I read- when I read when it becomes too much I can close my eyes and put the book down. I can let my heart calm and read again when I'm ready- or never again if that be the case.
But I can't do that with my life. I can't just set things aside and ignore them when I can't deal with what the world is saying to me. Even though I do.
And sometimes it's just too much. So I curl up with something short, something filled with emotion to mask my own.
And I read.
