Why do people laugh? What makes them cry? Smile? What allows them to love?
These are the questions I’ve asked myself for nearly the last twenty-one years. What makes people feel? I don’t understand what produces emotion and I’m supposed to be writing a paper on human emotion for my Sociology class.
I’ve been camped out on a bench in the center of the campus quad, studying the interaction of nearly the entire student body that goes to the University of Wyoming, and I still don’t understand.
What is it? Why do they hold hands? Kiss? Laugh? What the hell is making them look like there are rainbows and sunshine everywhere?
It is a warm fall day and leaves are fluttering across the dry grass. The branches are bare and the air is laced with rain. My jacket is balled up on the bench beside me and ear buds are stuffed into my ears. “Wonderwall”by Oasis plays through the speakers, the lyrics trying to surface an emotion buried deep inside me, but, like usual, it’s just a spark that quickly fades.
I jot some notes about a couple making out on the steps in the front entrance of the main office, which is a large brick building that has a historical look to it. Their hands are all over each other, feeling every inch of one another’s skin, like they want each other more than anything.
I don’t get it. I never have. For as long as I can remember, I’ve never been able to feel any emotion. Sadness, happiness, love; they are all just words to me. They have no more meaning or importance than the shoes on my feet.
When I was younger, I never thought much about it. I moved through my life like a robot, and I was fine, but lately, at least for the last few days, questions are surfacing. Maybe it is the fact that Professor Fremont, my Sociology professor, has been on a human emotion kick lately. Most of his lectures relate to the drive behind emotion.
Perhaps his words have finally stuck the pin into my thoughts. Why have I never felt anything? Am I broken? Crazy? Or are there just some people who go through life like me—peacefully disconnected?
I scribble the thought down, shut my notebook, and get to my feet, deciding to call it quits for the day. I gather my things into my bag and head across the campus toward my parked car.
I used to live in the dorm, but it’s the start of my Senior year and I made the decision to move out on my own. I’m sure it was a huge favor to the person in line to share a dorm with me. I tend to frighten people with my internal impassiveness.
I was the same way in high school. Most of my life, I was the outcast weirdo with no friends. It made sense. I mean, how can I make friends when I can’t smile, laugh, or even relate to people? As I pull my car keys out from my pocket, a nagging feeling overcomes me, like I forgot something on the bench.
I glance over my shoulder, squinting against the faint stream of sunlight flowing through the air. The bench is empty. My eyes sweep through the crowd and I get the impression that someone is watching me, but everyone seems to be engulfed in their own business.
Burying the impression, I turn back around and step off the curb. That’s when the heat hits me, like a kick to the stomach. I hunch over and my keys fall to the ground. It hurts, like fire’s melting my skin and scorching my hands, however my skin looks as pale and smooth as it always has.
I try to straighten back up, forcing my shoulders upward, but something stabs into the back of my neck. I reach around and feel the warmth of my skin scorching against my trembling fingers.
There is something else there, though—something invisible, possessing my body, as if hot liquid spills through my veins and pools inside my heart. I can’t breathe—can’t stand. My knees buckle and I collapse to the ground, the rocks dig through my jeans, into my skin, and my palms split open as I press them into the ground to hold my weight up. Every bone in my body feels like it is cracking open from the emotional pressure.
Every hurtful word, every sad moment, every lonely second I’ve ever experienced pours through me like a rampant river and submerges my body, drowning me in my own tears. My fingers shake as I touch my wet cheeks. I’m stunned. Shocked. Terrified. Because, for the first time in my life, I’m crying.
