Living Life Like an Open Wound
Sensitive is not a bad word
For as long as I can remember, I’ve been what some might call an “empath” or a highly sensitive person. It’s not always easy feeling everything around you all the time: the emotions, both positive and negative, coming off of people around you, the “vibe” in the room, the social and political environment, locally and internationally. I can’t really tell you when I first realized this. I guess I was not able to verbalize what I was feeling until I was much older, but even then, I think I only realized recently that I experience things differently than a lot of people.
I didn’t know for the longest time, for instance, that crying over and thinking (slightly obsessively) for days, about a dead animal on the road, was not something that everyone did. Most people can drive by and have a simple thought “poor thing” and then go on with their day, but I carry it with me all day: the pang of sorrow, coupled with “How did this happen? Why did it happen? If only it could’ve been avoided. Poor thing, did it suffer? Was it a mother that left some poor tiny infant creatures behind that may also die now because she’s gone??” …and on and on.
I still have a very vivid memory from when I was a child, of getting off the school bus on my street and seeing a ginger cat, on the road, that had been hit by a car. I felt an acute sadness…
