Failure is Progress

I'm currently reading a book about emotional maturity and it has lead me to a lot of self-reflection, like what created me to be an emotionally mature adult? And, am I an emotionally mature adult?

This book has led me to believe that my level of emotional maturity is determined by the way I was raised by my parents and how emotionally mature they were. Do I make choices that reflect an emotionally-mature adult?

I've felt for a long time my level of emotional maturity was forced to an upgrade a bit earlier in my life than the average child but I have learned that forced into becoming an adult and being emotionally mature are two very different things.

I may not be perfect, but I do believe I am pretty emotionally mature. When I am in the wrong, I can admit it, and learn from it. I have deep relationships with those closest to me, people I can really share anything with. I trust them. When I experience my feelings, I feel them. It's tempting to close them up in a box and pretend they don't exist, and I admit, occasionally, I manage to do that. For the most part, however, it is hard to hide how I am really feeling.

Today, I found out that a friend of mine had passed away. Someone I only knew through the power of the internet, but also someone who had touched me deeply. He was sweet, kind, and always optimistic. We were planning to video-chat eventually, and now we never will. I remember in middle school I never felt I could cry openly in front of anyone but as soon as I heard this news, that Christian had died, I just broke. My heart ached. I couldn't stop crying, really, even while still on the phone with my mom who had given me the news.

It's hard to count middle school as a Real Time because I don't think anyone was truly themselves in middle school. We were all trying to figure out how to be cool in our own way, but at the same time, trying to be like everyone else. High school wasn't too different. For the most part, crying openly in front of anyone was embarrassing, but crying alone for me was okay. It was sad, because it happened more often than I care to admit, but I didn't feel like I had to stop crying. I knew that sometimes feelings required you to cry through them, and once you got through the crying, you could breathe. The feeling had felt.

The first time I openly cried in front of my classmates was the day Theresa passed away during the end of my senior year of high school. I remember using up an entire box of tissues in the chapel. I remember being hugged by classmate who I wasn't particularly close with at the time, nor now, but being hugged by him until I felt okay. It was a long hug. I remember most of our class connecting more deeply than I had ever experienced all because of the shared loss of our classmate. My best friend from kindergarten.

But I also remember always having a hard time verbally expressing my feelings. Usually expressing my romantic feelings towards someone was always the most difficult, but I marked my progress with each relationship I had begun and ended. I grew from not being able to talk to my first boyfriend face-to-face, like, at all, to writing a break-up letter to my next boyfriend which was a terrible mistake but still progress, to breaking up with my next boyfriend over the phone, actually talking, to now, where even in our mishaps in communication we stop, listen, and start again. I've always felt embarrassed sharing this information, but when I look back on it, yes, I was an idiot a good part of the time, but I really did learn and grow. I am proud of myself. I didn't make the same mistake over and over, I made new mistakes instead. Failure, while feeling like failure in the moment, was real progress.

Now I ask myself, where has my progress been in grief? It feels like it starts over with every death I encounter in my life. I suppose my senior year of high school was special. I experienced more depression and anxiety than I thought I ever would. I remember that summer I couldn't use the phone. I couldn't answer it, I couldn't make phone calls. I couldn't drive, really, or run simple errands asked by my parents. I was really a wreck, but that year I was able to process through my steps of grief and grow from them. I often felt alone, but it was never in my family's house where I felt most alone. Yes I was the introverted gremlin who stayed in her room all day, but I did not fear my family in any way. My family has always felt like home and I know my relationship with each of them has grown deeper in their own unique ways.

My mom gave me the bad news and my immediate reaction was crying. I've never felt like the 5 stages of grief has ever hit me in chronological order, but maybe that's what the crying was. Denial. I really don't want to believe he's passed away. It's just not fair. We were supposed to video-chat because messaging in Italian back and forth was always more challenging that talking in Italian. But his English was not so great and it was the easiest way to communicate.

Maybe it's the long-term denial I've kept inside of me since my freshman year of high school, when I learned I was a carrier of this disorder I could pass on to my future children. I went through that grief in high school so I wouldn't have to worry about it anymore until I would actually have children. Now I'm 25, moving to finally be closer to my s/o since we've been long-distance for almost three years because eventually, we'd like to get married, and have children.

Is that why I'm just ready to cry? I'm not ready to leave? Or am I not ready to go?