Foolish Heart

I consider myself to have a pretty strong hold of my emotions. I am not flighty or especially over- or under-sensitive. Though current research in Neuroeconomics would probably tell us otherwise, I am, on the whole, rational about my goals, motivations, and choices. So naturally, I am always taken by surprise when my emotions trick me. When, with an air of superiority, my emotions laugh in my face, mocking me for thinking that I was in control.

In the fifth grade, something awful happened to my group of friends. A group of friends that had, since kindergarten, been on the same soccer team (The Red Panthers, that's who we appreciate!) and traded germs and gummy worms on the playground year after year. But that year, there was trouble in paradise. The weird part is that it just sort of crept up on us.

Names changed to protect the identity of people with whom I now connect and share my life via Facebook:

One day on the playground, Emily created an imaginary person named Square (Emily really liked geometry? I am still unsure why she named a person after a shape, but to each her own). "Nobody likes Square," she told us. She told us horrible stories about Square to the point that none of us could ever imagine being friends with Square, or even a person like Square, for that matter.

A week or so after the conception of Square, Emily told me a secret. One of many secrets I wish I had never been told. "Square," she said to me with that mature air that most ten-year-olds can only hope for, "is Gina." Gina, one of the other girls in our group. I was shocked. I was in utter disbelief that there was a disconnect within my picture perfect group of friends. The group then split in half, the Pro- and Anti-Square (Gina) camps. I found myself caught in between (some things never change). What followed were frequent lunch-time meetings with our teacher who tirelessly tried to reconcile a group of friends who she had seen evolve from the ripe age of five.

Things were never the same between us, and after that year, some of us moved to the middle school next door, some of us stayed at the elementary school, and one of us moved on to a private school a couple miles away (K-life).

To this day, I still grapple with the fact that Square was completely fabricated. What had started out as a joke, as a figment of Emily's imagination had taken the form of a real human being through Gina. And it could have been anyone, really. Emily and Gina had been the best of friends before the incident, but as Emily's character "Square" became more and more real, she finally decided to give it the identify of someone who actually existed, and someone she knew well (think Steppenwolf).

And I have (as I'm sure we all have) continued to be a pawn in this game of emotions as I've grown older.

My first semester of college was a struggle. I was meeting interesting people and enjoying my classes, but I simply had not yet "found my place." To be blunt, I was not happy. But I didn't want to worry my parents or friends, so, when I went home for Fall Break in October, I told them that I absolutely loved college and that everything was going swimmingly. And repeating my statement only made me believe it (oh how I love cognitive dissonance). Or so I thought: As I walked to the gate to board my plane back to college, tears started to stream from my eyes. And I couldn't stop them.

This was disconcerting for me on two levels. Firstly, I thought I had forgotten how to cry, which, clearly, was not the case, so I was generally surprised. And more importantly, I was nervous that I had no control over my emotions. I was not completely content with college, and my emotions weren't going to let me think otherwise. I could lie to others, but I simply could not lie to myself.

And with each day that passes by, I'm coming to realize that's what it comes down to. We all have our facades -- of happiness, of confidence, of satisfaction, the list could go on forever. And while these feelings may often be founded on something true and genuine, sometimes we might just be trying to fool others. When does a joke stop being a joke? When does disappointment turn into misery? When does apathy turn into concern?

This lack of control over our emotions doesn't necessarily mean you need to discount yourself, your actions, or the emotions you think you feel. Sure, they say that everybody is somebody's fool. Just, don't be your own.