If I asked you to describe the weight of emotions, how would you go about it? I first believed there was no physical form to emotions.I expected to describe the weight of emotions using words, because they have always carried the weight of everything we had to say as a species. Words are good, words hold energy. Words form curves and lines on a piece of paper. They resemble waves that have been twisted and turned to serve a purpose and form. Humans have spoken word; written them for centuries. To express love, hate, sadness, anger, grief. To define constitutions and to define borders, to start a lasting partnership and to end wars.But words can never feel enough. Words spill on the page, they roll off our tongue, yet we are left with greater urge to say and feel more than we already do. Words carry the weight of emotions, but not enough.
I then thought about pictures. Representing a thousand words and some more. Pictures that are feather-like squares or a colorful result of a shutter on the phone. Pictures are light, they take less space, or they take a lot of space if you hold too many. But they say so much. They feel so much. They are light in physical form but they are heavy with emotions. They contend as good carriers of the weight of emotions. I thought photos were the true representation of the weight.
Until I experienced the weight of emotions in my veins. When my hands felt too heavy to lift and my chest refused to rise from my bed. When my head started to spin because of the gush of emotions it held. The body that carried me to people and to places, that fought disease and resisted hikes up the hill, heavy with muscle and sugar from my ritual morning breakfast waffles. The body that wore a light cotton tee and shorts to wade off the heat, felt the real weight of emotions pinning it down. Physically fighting emotions that can’t be physically held, the true weight of emotions is felt in the body. No words, no pictures can do justice to the measurement of weight that the body carries out. Through heartbreak, through misery, through loss. We carry the true weight of emotions as a sizable stone in our chest, hoping it withers away over time and leaves some light. To feel a feeling, to weigh an emotion, to experience the catharsis of our conscience, is to carry it in our veins, in our cells, in our bones, till our graves.