I wound up in the baby section of the department store and man did I have feelings.
What’s the word for love/nostalgia/regret? Because that’s what I felt all at once. It wasn’t wrong. It wasn’t right. It was just there. Me experiencing another human emotion without a name.
I’ve been working really hard at trying to identify my feelings in my sober journey. But more and more I am realizing many of our feelings cannot be properly defined in the English dictionary.
Turns out there is a word for the feeling I felt. Natsukashii (Japanese) – a nostalgic longing for the past, with happiness for the fond memory, yet sadness that it is no longer.
I was just reading Brené Brown‘s new book in which she introduced me to another gem Schadenfreude (German) - the experience of pleasure that comes from learning of or witnessing the troubles of another.
In fact, other languages offer hundreds— maybe thousands— of words for nuanced emotions. Emotions we experience every day but perhaps never realized how normal and relatable they were because there was never a clear way to describe it.
As a writer, while it concerns me that there are so many emotions that we were never taught and cannot simply be defined in a mere word or two, it is my responsibility to dig deeper and describe them. Because a feeling without a definition is still a feeling; perhaps more complex feelings are even more important to uncover.
I may never write about ‘natsukashii’ in a sentence again but that doesn’t make it any less real. Human emotions are complex beautiful creatures, and the more we understand what is going on inside of us, the easier it is to revel in our human experience.
I miss my babies. I’m sad I will never buy another onesie unless it’s for someone else’s child.
But to come home today and discover a perfect definition. Something more complicated than simply nostalgia or envy. That felt validating. And it reminded me not to ever simplify a complex emotion. Because let’s face it, there is nothing simple about motherhood.
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