Lately, I’ve been feeling my emotions very intensely. And I kind of like it. I know it’s weird to enjoy being slightly crazy, but I just love FEELING. I feel everything so much and so hard. But I think it can be a beautiful thing – to feel so overwhelmed by the beauty in the world (I get this feeling a lot in the mountains) and so sad by all the struggle (I get this feeling a lot while traveling in developing countries).

I can tell I’m feeling when the checkers at the grocery store make me cry – I just can’t handle seeing old men checking groceries on a Tuesday night. I want them home, with families, in a comfortable, cheerful house. Doing what they want to – maybe watching TV, or eating a home-cooked meal, or laughing with friends and family. Anywhere but being 65 and working at Fred Meyer. This has happened to me since high school. I remember crying at the 2am Taco Bell manager, a balding 40-something working the late-night drive-thru shift. I couldn’t think of anything sadder than being a middle-aged Taco Bell manager, dealing with drunk teenagers on a Saturday night. The pain of his perceived life completely overwhelmed me. It hurts so much worse when they are kind.

When I finally got on an anti-depressant when I was 24, that feeling went away. It’s not that I stopped caring, but I stopped noticing. It’s funny – I was so worried about going on an antidepressant, because before I did, I felt that the world was a sad, dark, damp place and that if I got on medication it would mask that. The world would still be sad and painful, but there would be a veil between me and it. Instead, when the medication started working, I thought, “OH, so this is what normal feels like.” And it was true. I still had emotions, but they were more appropriate. I would feel sad if something was sad, rather than completely covered in sadness, like it was a heavy ocean moving above me.

Now that I’ve started feeling that way again, now that when I notice the stooped man working in the electronics section of Fred Meyer on a weeknight and think of the free $50 gift card to Sullivan’s Steakhouse that I won just burning a hole in my wallet, and wondering when that man last enjoyed a nice steak dinner out, I wonder if the antidepressant didn’t cover up the sadness in the world. How could I have stopped noticing things like that? How could I be so self-involved as to go about my business, never feeling the sadness of other people’s worlds?

To be fair, a friend pointed out that many people find happiness and contentedness with their lives and their work, and that I shouldn’t assume they are unhappy just because they are bagging groceries on a Thursday night in the middle of winter in Alaska. That they may lead very full and happy lives, and maybe they want to be there. That may be true, but I can’t help thinking that if that’s the case, then they are just simply not aware of how much else is out there. Maybe ignorance is bliss after all.