Once more, with feeling

Word of the day: e-mo-tion (noun) An affective state of consciousness in which joy, sorrow, fear, hate, or the like, is experienced, as distinguished from cognitive and volitional states of consciousness.

I'm in a weird place, emotion-wise, right now.  The past few weeks have been filled with more peaks and valleys than I really care for and it is making me long for the days when my emotions were the equivalent of Saskatchewan.

I've always been a fairly emotional person and over the past decade or so I've gotten better at actually showing my emotions.  This means that I feel and exhibit both the good and bad things that happen in my life, which is great when there's something worth celebrating (full time job, anyone?) but really damn well stinks when something bad happens (extermination X 3...so far). 

I've also been dwelling a lot on my future too.  (Sigh - what else is new?)  I made a promise to myself when I turned 29 that if, at 30, there was nothing to hold me to Toronto I would leave.  Funny how things have worked out in the seven months since I turned 29, as I now have one already-solid reason for not leaving Toronto (hate the corporate world all you want, but I could [and plan to] build a very happy career at Rogers) and one steadily-firming reason to kick around (holy relationship Batman!).

I've got a job-cum-career, a fantabulous beaufriend (I like that better than "boyfriend"), a cute but tiny apartment in an apparently up-and-coming neighbourhood, enough debt to prove I have an education but probably too many clothes and some good, solid friendships with people I truly love. 

So why is is that instead of relishing in my borderline 20-something cliche-dom, I'm a jittery, bubbling, insecure meat sack of emotion?

I've been contemplating Halloween costumes recently and have been tossing around the idea of going as Medusa and that's pretty appropriate right now because it's like I have a head full of emotion snakes, slithering around, all tangled and messed up and wriggling to be sorted out and freed.  (Is it ironic that I just made a snake analogy even though I loath and detest snakes with every ounce of my being?  I'm a little disturbed I did this, but it works.  Ugh/sigh.)

I hate snakes and I hate my emotions so I really hate my emotion snakes and I just don't know what I need to do to sort them all out.  It all comes to a head when I'm trying to fall asleep and I have nothing to distract me from all the thoughts and feelings and doubt that I have running through my brain.  As I lie awake pondering them all, I think I come up with some answers but I know deep down that they're all temporary solutions that will only lead to more snaky emotions. 

You know what, screw the snakes.  It's more like a big castle slowly being covered in ivy and vines and prickly bushes, waiting for the brave knight to show up and rescue the trapped princess.  Yes, I like that one so much better.  The problem is, once the knight gets through all the suffocating flora, I don't know what kind of princess he's going to release. 

Whether snakes or ivy or castles or whatever, I'm more than a little sick of my emotional ways.  Eff you emotions!  Eff you and the horse you rode in on!