Sunday, March 1, 2009

emotional roller-coaster

Devin Moon taught a class about emotion.  How a speech should take the judge to high and low points, give them a ride, not keep them at one altitude the whole time.  Now I understand that.

I spent Saturday alternately screaming myself horse as I cheered my team on, and trying to catch up on sleep in the stands at the Verizon center.  I was majorly depressed when our robot was eliminated, especially since it was because of a stupid error that disabled our robot for the entire round.  The next two hours I spent on a sleep-deprived high, completely ADD.  Then our team won the Chairman's award: the biggest, best possible award at the tournament, and I was ecstatic. Then we went to a Tai restaurant to celebrate, and I spent the rest of the night enjoying pineapple fried rice and relaxed conversation.  Then on the way home I was pulled over for the first time, for rolling through a stop sign.

Yesterday was an emotional roller coaster.  I don't know if I like it.  I felt joy and sadness, friendship and aloneness.  Yesterday was a rainbow of thought, an ever-changing flow of feelings.  It went from hot to cold to hot to cold to hot to cold... and all so fast, too fast to see, too fast to notice, you just felt the difference, you didn't feel the change.  Yesterday was a piece of metal in the forge... being heated, hammered, cooled, heated, hammered, cooled, and the finished product... I don't know.

Part of me wants to quietly fade away, to pass out of the picture into obscurity.  To be involved is so hard, so painful... but part of me screams "I'm not done! There is so much more I can do!" because to be involved is so fun, so exhilarating.  Not doing... as much... NCFCA makes me reflective.  Am I done?  I haven't achieved perfection, I'm so far from it, but have I learned all that I can from speech and debate?  Is it my time, like Peter and Susan, to leave Narnia forever?

So many unhappy thoughts, "I don't want to leave, do I?" "I just don't know... I just... don't know." "You don't have to decide now." "And how long do I put it off?  The time for everything is now."

I do know this. I never want to make a judge feel what I felt.  It is too cruel to make someone happy, and then to drown them in grief the next moment... and then to defile the grief with joy.  I don't think it can be done in a speech, it isn't personal enough, involved enough, but I don't even want to try.

1 comment:

  1. "You're hot then you're cold, you're yes then you're no . . ." Sorry, sorry, I couldn't resist. It's just I identify with this so much I can hardly articulate it. I still don't know if I truly hate the emotional roller-coaster, but I think I'm learning to cope.

    I think about competing next year, how badly I want to but also how strongly I feel my time is up. (And this is mostly Tim's fault for playing the Narnia card and putting the bug in my mind last fall - "My time in the league is over, it's time to move on." And now you. I hate that you guys make me ask myself this question!) I mostly don't want to think about it, but know I need to.

    Your last three sentences confuse me, I'm not sure you mean what I think you mean.

    And congratz on the Chairman's award! I'm really glad you're coming to FEE.

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