Heartbreaks

Yesterday evening my husband and I were watching a National Geographic nature show with my nine-year-old daughter when enjoyment turned to tears. We got to the inevitable point where the bear catches up to the newborn elk, who had fallen behind the herd, and you know the rest. My daughter ran upstairs crying and vowing to never watch another nature show again. We called to her as she left that it’s just a part of life. The bears have to eat too. But our words were met with a firmly closed bedroom door.

Later, she came into my room and apologized. “I just love animals,” she sniffed. I explained that I understood. That it is really hard to watch. I hugged her, thinking of the many moments that break my daughter’s heart.

She has always been a sensitive child, highly sensitive. With this comes frequent crying, emotional outbursts, lots of self-criticism, and as my sons call it, “drama.” When she was little, I often had to leave public places with her kicking and screaming on my shoulder. My cheeks flushed, but knowing I was doing the best I could for her by finding somewhere quiet she could cool off and start to reason again.

With these big emotions come enthusiasm and zest for life, and the downside: heartbreak. Any kind of suffering, injustice, or cruelty warrants extreme upset in her active mind. I don’t believe it’s out of the realm of normal behavior, because I think humans possess a broad range of normal. I also think some of it may iron itself out over the years. But there is no doubt she is an empath, and as her mom, I feel for her feeling “all the feels.”

I was also a sensitive child, but more of a quiet, reserved nature. As I got older I searched for ways to cope with discomfort and used alcohol to numb the sharp edges of my world. And I think that’s a common reason for falling into the alcohol trap; drinking to escape the heartbreak embedded in our world. That’s what we do, when it’s all too much. When we want to shut off our brain and close our eyes to a reality we don’t want to behold.

But what about when we were younger? I witness my daughter confront a thousand little heartbreaks as she makes her way though the years. Children can’t opt to tune out, so they must be resourceful, or figure out how to make a way through without a protective coating. She apologizes a lot…feels sorry for feelings she doesn’t know what to do with or can’t make go away.

In a way, getting sober requires us to learn to be children again, with eyes wide open. Sure we can look away, walk upstairs and close the door, but we can’t stop the upwelling of feelings that spill out of a heartbreaking thought or scene. In a way, children are the brave ones, facing this world without numbness or disconnection. Forging a path through what looks like a wilderness of injustice and overwhelm. Having no choice but to feel the feelings and either thriving or barely surviving, depending largely on who’s there to hold a hand or share a comforting word.

That’s one thing I always try to do is acknowledge her feelings, and hold her, while she still wants me to. Coming to terms with the fact that the world isn’t safe, or fair, and life is not easy or promised is one of the hardest things to do. So hard that we adults often reach for chemical relief. But children face their heartbreaks and fears unfiltered. And the least we can do is share the light we’ve found along the way.

We need to learn to be children again. To sit with our heartaches and feel, but also to reach out for love and support. We weren’t born to stuff our feelings into a bottle, or swallow our sorrows in silence. But to live and learn and feel, like children.