Feeling Too Much

Empathy is a very easy for emotion for me to feel. It hasn’t always been that way; I used to pass cruel judgements onto others before knowing them, condemning the things I simply didn’t understand. Thankfully, that changed as I grew older. I’m not entirely sure what it is, but something about me encourages other people to unload their problems and concerns onto me. It started when I was waitressing in high school and it has continued throughout the last several years of my life. People I barely know will trust me with their life stories. I have heard so many people tell me their perspectives on the world and explain their problems. Somewhere along the way I started to understand that nothing in this world is black and white. With that understanding came a great deal of patience and compassion for others. I am now significantly less judgmental, and I find myself putting myself in others’ shoes with ease.

Thinking about it now, it’s crazy to imagine that there was a time in my life where I could listen to other people talk and feel nothing at all, especially now that I feel so many things all at once. It is absolutely insane for me to contemplate the fact that the girl I used to be thought that love was something meant to be reserved for the select few people that had earned a spot in my heart. I kept my love boxed up, under lock-and-key, and only made the effort to unlock it and pull a little piece of it out and give to someone else once they had proven themselves worthy by whatever standards the young version of me believed were necessary. I was only capable of showing empathy toward those select few that were fortunate enough to receive my love.

Now, I believe that young Jayme had it completely wrong. While I still believe that empathy is something greatly reserved for people that I love and care about, I don’t believe that love is such a restrictive emotion only shown in one way to a select few individuals. As I started understanding that there was more to people than I saw at first glance, I started to understand how easy it could be for me to care about the well-being of others. I started to understand that love didn’t have to be something shown only through the hugs and “I love you”s shared with family members upon our departures, or in the kisses of significant others; love could be expressed in the smiles and “have a nice day”s shared with customers, or in the acceptance of strangers’ differences.

This understanding of love and empathy is very crucial to the workings of this world, and I didn’t fully understand that until I experienced both extremes of human existence. In June of 2015, I stood in the delivery room as my big sister gave birth to a beautiful boy. Being the youngest in my family, I hadn’t gotten to witness first-hand how much love I was actually capable of producing before his arrival. I had loved my family and friends to the end of the world, but the love I carry for this little boy is much deeper than I had previously known. It is baffling how much I can love someone and still have room to love so many other people as much as I do, and I don’t think I will ever be able to accurately describe how it feels. Being in the hospital room that day taught me the depths of human love.

A couple months later, in October of 2015, I sat in the hospital as my uncle took his last breaths. I remember standing in the hallway just outside of the ICU after my grandma had made the difficult decision to take him off life support. I didn’t want to be in the room. I knew that there were some things you could never unsee. But still, I peeked through the curtain as the nurse pulled the tape from his eyelids, and watched as his eyes rolled around, beyond his control. I knew then that the body lying in the hospital bed may have belonged to my uncle, but the man lying there was no longer the uncle I had grown up loving. I had to leave. In the lobby, I sat surrounded by other family members that I loved and I knew loved me. Together, we bonded over that love. Despite the unbelievably terrible thing that had taken the life of a man that was a part of our family, we had bonded over the fact that each of us had known him, and that each of us would continue to carry that with us when no one else would ever have the opportunity to know him again. In that moment, I understood how precious human love is.

Experiencing these extremes helped demonstrate the weight of love, and helped me understand that love isn’t a reward. Love gives us meaning. I believe that wholeheartedly, which is why the line "the less you love, the less you feel alive" from the song "In Florida" by A Day To Remember has become my personal motto. It is a reminder to me that a life without love can never really be lived to the fullest.

After pinpointing the exact moments I learned of the depths and the importance of love, I began to feel it more frequently. It made me so much lighter, and anchored me down at same time. I was happier. I felt like I had cracked the code to human existence. But I was also lower than I had ever been because I could feel the lows of others all at once. Every time I hear of babies being born, I genuinely feel joy for their families. Every time I hear of people dying, I feel it in my gut, as if it was someone I knew personally. It destroys me, and it fuels me at the same time. There are times that I cry because I feel so overwhelmed by how blessed I am, and times that I cry because I feel incredibly helpless. Despite feeling all of the bad, I would never take it back. While in the moment of my lows, I may wish I could feel nothing, but when it really comes to it, I wouldn’t wish it away because I know that without it, I could never understand just how high my highs actually are. I would rather feel too much than to go back to feeling nothing at all. This is why I will always choose to spread my love to anyone and everyone who needs and wants it (and even to some that don’t necessarily want it). I believe that accepting is so much better than denying, and life is much better loving and feeling things.