Why The Door To My Office Is Shut

[ayun]

Sometime after 9/11, months or years I don't remember, I realized that I had changed a little. I can't say for certain that I changed because of 9/11, or that I changed around that time, and it became a useful peg in retrospect, but it probably doesn't matter. 9/11 happened when I was in my very early twenties, not long out of college, a soft, pink

Comments

[rojagato]

> I thought that experience functioned like a callus

I did too, until that signature event. My emotions were left quite raw, and I realized that it wasn't the events that make the callus, it's an act of will that does so, and I just didn't have the will any more.

[eowyn797]

i cry more easily now than i used to, but less when things are sad and more when i am happy. i cry out of hope all the time now instead of despair, i think. idk if that's just since 9/11, but it has definitely happened with age.

[atalanta]

I found that becoming a parent had a similar effect.

[spitcurl]

Empathy. It makes us all more human.

Empathy can be tough and resilient too-it is what connects us to each other, which helps us get through the awfulness together without losing touch with our humanity along the way.

Allowing yourself to express vulnerability is part of being strong. Strength isn't about being immoveable like a rock, it is about being deeply rooted and yet adaptable and bendable like a tree.

[absolution]

I didn't expect this to be the way I changed over time. I thought that experience functioned like a callus, making people tougher, more resilient, less affected by the reliable awfulness of the world and so better able to continue to exist in it and find happiness and things to celebrate in it. Children cry, but adults should not be seen to do so.

It's funny, I feel the same bewildered way sometimes; I've become a lot more generous about my and others' openly emotional reactions to things. Although I've also noticed that when I was young, I only cried when I felt negative emotions--desperation/helplessness/frustration especially, yes!--never positive ones. Now I cry a lot more when I'm moved in a positive, life-affirming way.

((((good thoughts))))

[absolution]

though I guess in a way it does make sense, the "cry more at good things as you get older" bit--by then you've experienced enough to recognize those moments are fragile and precious, and at the end of the day what really matter. i know i realize that more now than i did as a teenager or kid or whatever, when you take them for granted or are just too wrapped in yourself/bad or confusing or overwhelming things to pay attention.