If Feelings Mattered

By Sarah C. Ayers

What would our world today, in this time up upheaval and confusion be like if feelings mattered?

What would it be like if we put as much thought into each other as my children put into the Zoom meetings with their teachers?

What would it be like if we thought as much about others as we did ourselves? What if we cared for others as much as we should ourselves? What if feelings mattered?

Things would be different, yes, things would be very different.

This morning I realized we are not loving and caring for ourselves as we ought. We do matter, our feelings count. Life has been a frenzy and in the midst of it we have forgotten ourselves. I think it began when we started grabbing toilet paper off of the shelves at Costco. A sort of feeling overcame us and that frantic feeling has not left us.

All that we have now is an un-named sense of loss, grief and anger that there is nothing to do with but to be mean to each other. Why are we mean and what is there to come of it? Nothing. Nothing at all.

Last night my feelings were hurt so much by my sweet daughter. Her comment cut me deeper than I thought could be and she apologized so instantly before I could get a hold of myself. Until last night I hadn’t realized how much I have been stacking up, pushing aside, and not dealing with. My poor girl. Are we all hurting each other by not taking moments to consider even our own feelings?

We need to do more than randomly send out memes that show levels of frustration in various celebrities saying, “Which I Love Lucy Are You.” We need to call each other up on the phone as we think of them. We need to give people a chance at the grocery store. We need to treat each, not as inconveniences, but maybe to see each other as we see a lost, scared child. Because, right now, that is how we might truly be feeling.

What hurt my feelings, what tipped me over the edge, was when my daughter poked my tummy and said “Mom, you used to have rock solid abs. Why don’t you run or do weights? You need to do that.” She said it in a light, teasing tone, but it struck me hard. She meant no harm. She told me later on after sobbing quietly in the bathroom, that she had meant to joke around.

It wasn’t really out of embarrassment that I cried. It was realizing that I haven’t been working on myself and enjoying being fit because I have thought that it was “more important” to take things five notches up in homeschool, daycare, mask making, blogging and nanny-agency-ing.

Feelings do matter, you matter. You are God’s beautiful creation and you matter!

Let’s find out what our world will look like if we started caring, let’s change something.