It may come as no surprise that as a child, I had some BIG feelings. I was (am) quick to cry, and would frequently storm up to my room to do it in private.
Like clockwork, my mother would come after me, and knock on the door until (sometimes) - I answered.
She would come in, and sit next to me, and give me a side hug. She would hand me tissues and water. And then she would say, "I thought you were my strong girl."
I spent so many years resenting those words. How could she say that, I would wonder, that is so unhelpful and isolating.
But what I know now is that my mother loved me the absolute best way she knew how. She had spent her entire life moving forward in spite of her emotions. It was this forward-motion that kept her head above water. It was this stifling that allowed her to not collapse.
So to see me, in a puddle of my own tears, probably worried her. She was likely scared that I wouldn't be able to control my emotions - that they were so strong, that they would lead me astray. And so the only way to prevent that, was to stuff them down, and: be strong(er than they were).
One of the biggest, most hard-earned lessons I've learned throughout my life is that the exact opposite is true. The word "emotion" is derived from the fact that it is literally energy in motion - and when we stop this motion, the energy gets stored in our cells. I still remember the moment in therapy when I learned that you cannot selectively repress emotions. You stop the bad ones, you stop the good ones, too.
I share all of this because I think it is especially hard for kids of immigrants to see the strength in their own emotion. Our parents dealt with a lot of shit - and in many cases, barely shed a tear throughout it all. Who are we to sit and simmer in our ~feelings~? Isn't it all just a big waste of time?
I've asked myself these very questions. And while I don't have a perfect answer - what I will offer is this:
Our parents donned the armor they needed, for the time they were living in, because of the circumstances they were born into.
In other words: they dealt with different shit.
So why are we trying to use their old armor?
This doesn't mean the armor was bad. It was necessary to slay the dragons they needed to.
And - medieval armor has no business in our present day. Not because it's less-than. But because it's solving a different issue.
We don't have dragons anymore. Many of us don't need to move to a new country to escape dictators, or flee to find refuge in the face of partition.
Don't you think that deep down, they wish they'd had the ability to just break down and cry? Don't you think they felt that lump in their throat before they swallowed it? Are we so naive to believe that they didn't long for this luxury - the one that we're so busy feeling guilty about, that we deprive ourselves of it altogether?
I do. I think that's precisely why it's difficult for them to observe us feeling things at all. It requires them to come face-to-face with yet another privilege they didn't have.
Because that's precisely what it is.
The ability we now have to name, feel, and process our emotions is an effing privilege.
And what can be done with that privilege - with the BOUTS of new energy unlocked - is both beyond their wildest dreams, and our responsibility.
Our grief can create poetry they never knew could exist.
Our anger can lead to activism they wish they had in their time.
Our despair can trigger career changes they didn't know where possible.
Our hope can inspire inventions that give them a sense of childlike joy.
Our joy can cultivate connections deeper than they've ever experienced.
Every emotion can be a catalyst for something - if we are brave enough to feel it.
Brave enough to get curious about it.
Brave enough to meet our internal dragons, and create not in spite of them, but because of them.
This is the real armor, the one I'm working on cultivating.
The one I hope we can all don, with pride.