Dear Diary

My counselor has asked me to keep a journal of my emotions. The theory - and it's a wonderful and wise one - is that I live so much at a brainy, intellectual, analytical level at school that I don't allow myself to experience real emotion unless is safely processed through some sort of clean and clear analyzed way of communicating myself. And it is crippling me from experiencing life as it was actually meant to be lived, and is causing me to keep my feelings to myself until they explode.

So instead of saying, "I am frustrated with how I am managing my time, I will now organize my day to be able to accomplish what I want to get done" what I really mean to say, and what I'm learning to say to myself, is, "I am deeply afraid of how out of control I feel." Hopefully I'll get the hang of it.

You have no idea how hard it is to teach myself to think this way at school, where I am essentially on call as an RA all the time for advice and such, not to mention staff meetings and duty rounds. It's hard as a communication major, where I am rewarded the more intellectually I can communicate my thoughts in class and in my papers. Or at a school and eventually professional world that celebrates a sort of military self-management over my time and rowdier emotions.

So how am I feeling right now? Sad I guess. Or, just not happy. Looking at the whole emotion journal on paper, I think I must definitely be crazy. How can I go from feeling lonely to happy in a half hour? From content to sad? I guess it just looks all funny written out. It's okay. I'm alright with being a little crazy. I hope you are, too.