I just wanted to make sure everyone knows something very important that I have recently discovered: People can have more than one feeling AT THE SAME TIME! How shocking is that?

Your answer is likely, “Not very.” Most of you have probably been aware of this fact for much of your lives. And while I suppose I was conscious of this fact, I didn’t really get it. (Some of us are a little slow, so you’ll have to forgive us.)

Now, though, after many, many years of stuffing, ignoring, wadding up, stomping on, tossing back and forth, and generally doing anything I could to my feelings besides looking at them and letting them be, I am finally kinda sorta trying to be a little bit still and observe, even if it terrifies me sometimes. I may squirm in perceived agony as I sit, but I’m more still than I used to be.

And thus, ta da! Revelations! This morning I realized that I felt joyfully anxious. Or maybe it was anxiously joyful. Either way, there dancing together in front of me were joy and fear. How marvelous!

What? Anxiety, marvelous? Well, let me try to explain.

I certainly don’t like the anxiety at all. It has brought with it various symptoms at various times, and one of the primary symptoms I’ve had lately has been the feeling of being really uncomfortable in my own skin, like I don’t know if I can stand to inhabit my body and be a person who does and feels all the person-like things that I must do and feel. It sounds insane, I’m sure, but such is anxiety. That fear response is a crazy devil.

But. But, fear is, of course, part of being human, and something that must be confronted and tamed rather than ignored. When I sit with my fear and let it be, it fades, it melts away like the Wicked Witch of the West. Really feeling the fear allows me to be more compassionate, more grateful for the good stuff, and more able to recognize joy in all its incarnations. In short, the fear allows me to be more human. And, in the end, as much as I hate feeling the fear, that can only be a marvelous thing. And if some or all those feelings exist at the same time, then I must be very human indeed.