Everyone on this planet has flaws and I am certainly no exception. Recently I have discovered that an ability I took years to hone has, through lack of use, faded in certain instances. I’ll explain. 

I’m a highly emotional person. This is both a fantastic and horrible quality about me. It’s fantastic because I love very deeply and get extremely excited. I also laugh quite loudly and cry really hard every once in a while. It’s horrible because I react to things in a highly emotional state quite quickly which is neither when I’m always thinking straight nor is it when I can fully appreciate the intention of the sentiment presented to me. I have a pretty wonderful friend who was helping me with this professionally and I had become quite good at giving myself processing and cooling down time before initial reactions. I had honed my skill to be articulate and passionate after truly understanding where a person was coming from in a disagreement. It was nice. 

This past week I learned that I have lost some of the sharpness of my skill. I have also discovered that there are certain people that I will defend with words I don’t normally say. There was a conversation I was having with someone this week and I was spewing some of the vitriol I was feeling about a situation and I said words about a third party that I have scarcely had occasion to say in my life. I wished harm. I was aggressive. Such was my anger. I sobbed uncontrollably at one point and I realized that I was crying not because of this person but because of what I had allowed myself to become. I had sent off an email when I was in my original state that was filled with hatred and disgust in the purest senses of the words. I later became ashamed of myself. 

In discussing what I had done I was told not to worry, that I had just been “mama bear” about those that I loved. I understand this reasoning but do not think it should be an excuse. After all, I am not a bear and I should have been able to control myself. I searched my soul that night and did my thing with God and the Universe and decided I needed to humble myself for an apology. I wrote one knowing that I didn’t necessarily mean the words yet, but that I wanted to mean them.  In my moment of being humble, I learned again to let the bears be the bears and I will do my best at being me.