"When you grow up, your heart dies."

I wish there was a better translation for the German word "Mitgefuehl" ... It's close in concept to "Mitleid" - compassion, a suffering along with (someone) but encompasses a broader spectrum of feelings than just the rigors of suffering, Mitgefuehl is literally a feeling along with (someone). Okay, technically, it means 'empathy,' but that translation is imperfect, as translations usually are.

Now, I'm a sensitive and emotive person, and I tend to experience emotions as very present, and very extreme. I'm not exactly what you would call even-keeled. I'm exuberant or moody, but rarely just ok. I experience spontaneous Mitgefuehl sometimes, usually in response to the distress or delight of someone I'm close to. For me, it's an intense welling up of emotion, sometimes quite disconcerting because it can dislodge me from the tasks of my day and become the sole paradigm that I am able to inhabit until someone else comes along and shakes me back into reality.In general, I consider this a positive quality in myself, although I do realize that I am sometimes a little... intense, which may be off-putting to newer acquaintences for whom I (already) feel an affinity, or even to dear friends who are simply not as expressive about their emotions. What can I say - I am who I am, and in general, it works out ok for me.

It gets difficult, though, when there is no available outlet for these emotions of 'feeling along'. Just this past week I was confronted with such a situation. A person told me about a very distressing personal situation. I really, sincerely like this person, although we do not know each other well. My emotional reaction to the bad news was intense. I wanted to reach out, to care for this person, to offer any and every support they need that I could possibly give, to wrap them up in a protective layer of my caring for them, so that the pain of their situation would be lessened. Because the nature of my relationship with this person is a professional one, I could not do this. I could not do anything that felt meaningful to me, or that relieved the burdan of my feeling of concern. I do not know if the meagre actions I had room to take did anything at all to alieviate this person's distress.

Because I could do 'nothing,' my emotions continued to flow and flow and soon I was drained, exhausted, beat. I don't want to stop caring about the world that I live in or the people I encounter in it, but it is going to take me several days to refill my tank of emotional stability. Even now I am thinking - if only I could have done 'something'! This is not the most ideal of situations for me. Am I the much-belittled fool with the heart on her sleeve? Does everyone experience moments of feeling-along-with-someone like this and everyone else just knows how to manage it better than I do? How can I train myself to find and maintain a course of moderation, and y'know, have mature and professional relationships with people? How can I use my emotive impulses to create actual good in this world? How will I ever become cool if I keep confessing to nerdy falliabilities like this? Why does my foot hurt so much when it falls asleep? Should I even be writing on the internet about this? Can you become a grown-up without your heart dying?