What do we do with feelings? I am new to those so I am really trying to figure what they are, what they mean and what to do with them when they arise.

As I talk to old friends from times that have passed in my life, I literally feel nausea in my stomach. I have talked to several old friends lately, my maid of honor, an old neighbor, a friend a little further ahead in life than I and as I do, so much gets stirred up. I hear about things that are going on in their lives and things that are happening in different states across the country and honestly I'm not sure how I feel about it. It is incredibly inspiring and motivating but it also hurts, whether a good hurt or bad, I don't know. I am not sure what the hardest part is...

I don't necessarily think it is one specific thing. But I think it has caused me to have a new found intensity for life and things that matter. I have realized it hurts to know I am replaceable. I am realizing that I turn to people for my worth, for company, for fulfillment. I am beginning to realize that I have such need for and find such validation in other people. I never thought I was much of a people pleaser nor do I think I am unaffected by people. But I realize that I find comfort and feel love from other people in ways that I hadn't realized. I count on people so much more than I ever knew. When things don't go the way I had planned or hoped, I have a huge let down because of the incredibly ridiculous expectations that I have placed on people. The expectations are unspoken and kept in my head where they fester and grow and don't help anyone.

And when I go for days, weeks, or even months without these relationships and then have several restored, I get huge pangs of sadness. I don't know if sadness is even the right emotion but it is the name I know to put with how I feel...until now.

I am longing. I long for relationships that don't have to end with hanging up the phone. I long for intimacy that is maintained only through time spent together, not just quality but tons and tons of quantity. I am longing for a heart that is full independent of another person. I long for beauty, beauty in a heart, in a face I have missed and most certainly in a morning I wake up to sun mixed with raindrops and a rainbow peeking through. I am desperate to be with people that fill me up and that I can fill up, surrounded by people that breathe life into me and I into them, separate from a world and a people that are hurt and that hurt.

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I can't help but think this is a human thing, not a boy/girl thing or adult/kid thing. The way we express it or the way we imagine it may differ but the longing has to be the same. If only I could recognize this longing as what it is, a longing for a heavenly place, a passionate place, an inspiring place where only One can satisfy.