Diaries of an Emotional Thinker

Being in a class entitled "The Philosophy of Sexuality" this summer has certainly opened my eyes yet baffled me simultaneously. However, most importantly it has led me to question many things that I once thought I had understood. With these once clear topics now blurred, and with a recent trial in my life I was forced to think of the events in my short journey that made "Jem"... Jem. But who am I and what aspect of me am I referring to today? Today, I am referring to the emotional Jemmimah.

I was always a sheltered child, yet I grew up in a home that was always open; open to those in need. Just like the case of where I grew up, many more oxymorons were present. I was raised by a mother who was attached to me, yet would always tell me the cold, sometimes brutish truth. As I blossomed, I was the quietest child at school and the most talkative at home. I was the kindest, yet the most aggressive. And as I grew, the once ugly duckling eventually became a "swan" and the girls that became my friends treated me like a gem that needed to be constantly babied and protected; yet they themselves were tough, out-spoken and sometimes rebellious.

Then tragedy struck...I lost two of my best friends (in the same year). Then I lost a young woman who I admired since I was little. I called her "Dawn" and I remember sharing many memories with her when she would take me from my mom to spend weekends at her house. With the already present paradoxes or "ambiguities" that shaped me, these tragedies turned me into an "emotional wreck" and I was totally oblivious to this.

Yes, Circumstances made me who I am today. However, how does this so called emotional girl love without seeming to be needy? How does she survive in a rational world where reason is favoured and emotion scorned? As I was led to think on this I had an epiphany.

So many times we see the world in binary: black or white, on or off, male or female. These ambiguous dichotomies that were already constructed for us that we sometimes force ourselves into are not necessarily the way we ought to view the world or the things within it. This girl has been told she is "overly emotional" only because she is not always rational, she allows the heart to lead her many times and gets tossed into the "emotional" category. But who said that there is no reason in love? At that moment, I reflected on one of my favourite quotes by F. Nietzsche that says "there is always some madness in love; but always some reason in madness."

Furthermore, I realized that this blog in itself, a space where I write at great lengths mostly about love and relationships is enough evidence that I am not just a member of the "emotional" group, but I am a thinker; I'm an emotional thinker. Nietzsche is right once again; whoever said that loving means absence of reason and absence of the mind does not really know love.

In conclusion, emotional, rational or other, free yourself from these ambiguous categories! Furthermore, do not feel discouraged or ashamed when you make decisions based on emotion- sometimes they make sense, sometimes they're probably the best choice you could have made!

Speak the truth and accept the truth in love...