10 - Hard Lessons

Sometimes, people don't live forever.



     In the Spring of Porcelain's Junior year, she learned a very hard lesson. Death would visit her family, and leave with her grandfather. Her large family was closely knit, kept in touch, always came home for holidays, etc. There were many in town at any given moment leading up to her grandfather's death. Porcelain loved having more family around ... but not for this reason.

Backtracking a bit.

     Porcelain and her cousins would hang out every afternoon that month. She was closer to her family than she was to others, aside from the friends she had made at school. She had gone to every dance in her Junior year and joined the art and debate clubs. It seemed as if her shyness had all but disappeared, since she had quite the social life now! Porcelain, her sister, and their friends would often hang out on the weekends, their cousins joining when they were in town. They would drive up and down Main Street blaring music, go to the local pool hall and tailgate bonfires (not the football kind) and enjoyed nature trails in the dark.

     Unfortunately, overshadowing all of this was her grandfather going in and out of the hospital that year. He was sent home to finish out his days, with Porcelains' mother acting as an in-home nurse. Her grandmother showed a brave face, but no one's eyes could lie to Porcelain. Remember when I wrote about empathic abilities? With emotions running so high, everyone in the house was quieter than ever. On the day of her grandfather's funeral, there was not a dry eye in the funeral home, and there were nearly 300 people there (Seriously!). Many of her grandfather's past acquaintances and business partners had also come to pay their respects to her grandmother.

     About two weeks or so after the funeral, the house seemed eerily quiet with everyone gone. More and more, Porcelain felt as if she were walking around with a cloud inside her head, just going through the motions of life. She felt emotionally numb for the rest of her Junior year. She made the very bad decision to 'shut off her emotions' so-to-speak. This wasn't depression or some mental instability, but rather a self-defence mechanism because of how close she had been to her grandfather.

     She just didn't want to feel things anymore. At first it was of no importance, and feeling numb was a new-found virtue. Then she realized all too late that she stopped caring for the things that made her happy, even sketching and writing. Summer had arrived and she would hibernate during the day, then go out with her friends in the evening. She played 'normal' very well; no one would be the wiser about her current state of mind.

     What do we know about 'shutting off our emotions'? It's not a good idea. But unfortunately... A lot of us do it. We usually learn very hard lessons from it. When empaths learn to block things out, because it becomes too much or stressful events happen, they block hard. Sometimes blocking the recognition of their own emotions.

     It all hit her like a brick one day. Senior year was about to begin. Her cat she had named after 'Breakfast at Tiffany's', unfortunately passed away. The suddenness of it jump started a flood of emotions with the dam breaking with the thundering sound of a storm. Pure terror. Porcelain cried for hours it seemed, until she was finally all cried out. Learning to re-evaluate her own emotions and distinguish between others again would take time, but thankfully she had the best teacher, her mom. Hard lessons have to happen in order to learn.

Growing up is hard! Even harder for us vampires. ;)



Link for your viewing pleasure:

Not quite scientific, but hits the nail on the head: For those who shut off their emotions
https://www.theodysseyonline.com/for-those-who-shut-off-their-emotions