Marie Marthe Part 7 - Learning to Feel

• Part 1 - The Nazi Dillema
• Part 2 - The Boy in The Striped Pajamas
• Part 3 - The Girl with the Scars on Her Back
• Part 4 - Mary and Martha
• Part 5 - Betraying the Boy
• Part 6 - Betraying the Girl

I'm left-handed. Not a big deal, but also not all that common--especially in Haiti. Have you ever watched a left-handed person write (I mean the pen and paper kind of write, not the kind that produced this post)? If they're like me, they curve their hand all the way around the pen as if they are writing upside-down. They drag their hand over the paper and smudge everything they write.

Not all left-handed people write like this. Some write "normally" with their hand below the pen. The opposite is true of right-handers: most write with their hand below the pen. But a rare few curve their hands like a left-hander when writing-- I've only ever noticed one or two.

I've heard a theory about this phenomenon. I don't know if it's true, but it's interesting nonetheless. The theory is that when your brain dominance is opposite your hand dominance, you write "normally". But, because the two sides of your brain control the opposite sides of your body, when dominance is the same (right handed and right brained or vice versa) you write with this curved hand that I described. So what does this say about me? Well, I'm left handed and I write with a curved hand. So that means I'm left brained.

If you aren't familiar with the stereotypes, left brained people are logical and rigid compared to the emotional, creative right brainers. That's me-- logical and rigid.

Here's another thing you may or may not know about me. Early in my marriage with Gwenn, we struggled. We disagreed a lot, and when we disagreed we didn't fight fair. But towards the end of our first year together things began to fall into place-- except, that is, on the weekends. For some reason, our relationship would go well during the week and then crash and burn on Saturday and Sunday.

I'm not sure how we discovered the root cause of these weekend-struggles, but it became clear over time. You see, at that time I was finishing college (about 20 credit hours per semester) and also working close to full time. My days were long, and started early. I got up at 4am to start work, while Gwenn usually got up between 6 and 7. What this means is that I had 2-3 hours of time every morning that was quiet and solitary. This down time filled me up and allowed me to function reasonably well within a relationship. But on the weekends, when I didn't have this time, like any good introvert, I got cranky. That's me-- introverted.

And one more thing: I'm a stuffer. When hard things happen, I stuff the feelings down inside and pretend I don't even have them. I come by it honestly, though. I come from a family of stuffers. What this means is that I didn't practice handling emotion much as a kid. And I didn't see it handled very often. In fact, my family wasn't immune to the emotional explosions that are common among stuffers. And this created in me an (un) healthy fear of-- not my family, it was nothing like that-- a fear of emotion. As I grew I found that I liked who I was without emotion, but I didn't like "emotional Nick" and this lead to even more stuffing.

So as I went through my teenage years (the time when you're old enough to have a personality but not old enough to have a good one) all these things-- logical, rigid, introverted, stuffer-- combined into one terrible emotion.

Apathy.

It's true, I was probably the most apathetic high schooler ever. That's not to say that I didn't have positive traits at this time, but they actually seemed to amplify this apathy. One of my best friends in the world (then and now) told me once "you're so apathetic it's a disease." This wasn't an insult, it was a commentary on reality. It put words to what I knew, but refused to admit. And it started me on the journey that has led me here.

Enter the most beautiful, delightful, wonderful, fun, emotional person I've ever met: my future wife. She began to teach me to feel, but not in the way you think. You would expect at this point for me to tell you that she taught me to love. But the reality is (and this would not be news to her) that falling in love for me was more about logic and choice than emotion. I chose Gwenn because of all the things above, but I've always said that a successful marriage is less about who you choose but how you're committed to them.

No, my next step was more about pragmatism than anything else. As I mentioned, we struggled early in our marriage. Our days, many times, were filled with conflict. And most times, this conflict stemmed from a different way of looking at things. She would look at things emotionally, I would look at things logically, and we would come to different conclusions about how we should move forward.

Both of us had to give to make it through this clash of worldviews. Gwenn gave a lot. And I began to give up my fear of emotion. I started to say "emotion isn't everything, but it has to be taken into account. God can speak through emotion just like he speaks through wisdom."

This was a huge step forward, but it wasn't about my emotion-- it was someone else's. And while I was willing to give credence to their emotions, I was still afraid of my own.

• Part 8 - Found Heart