foxes and feelings

I'm not afraid of my feelings.

I'm not afraid of foxes, either. Not even that night at the campground when I was brushing my teeth and a fox, en route to her nightly garbage bin inspection, passed within a few feet of me. Acting on instinct, I let out a minty, foam-flecked Hey, buddy!

The fox growled, but never broke stride.

Ignorant tourist, she was probably saying, and probably rightly so.

But back on the topic of feelings.

I'm not afraid of them. Not anymore. As in, I used to be.
Don't feel [fill in the blank].
Shouldn't feel [fill in the blank].
Wrong to feel [fill in the blank].
I do not feel [fill in the blank].
Deny, deny, deny. Control, control, control. I was deathly afraid of my feelings. Quite literally. I think at least a few of you can relate.

You know who you are.

I appreciate my feelings, now. I even like most of them, including the shitty ones. Including the confusing ones. Including the ones I'm not sure I want to have. I like foxes, too. Of course, I can like a fox and be unafraid of a fox without getting involved with her. Without waving my hand in front of her snarling maw. Without trying to get her to like me, too.

I can also dislike that the fox is gnawing the bloodied leg of one of the rabbits that I saw living and breathing earlier that afternoon. I can dislike the shit out of it but also accept that I can't control it and that there is a reason that the fox is chowing down, just like there is a reason that this gnawing, annoying, relentless feeling I've been stuck with exists.

The fox, of course, is doing this gnawing for survival. And pleasure, I'm sure. I don't begrudge the fox. This feeling, on the other hand, is a sadistic bastard, probably only gnawing because it's bored and understimulated and hasn't gotten laid since 2019.