Wasabi Sunshine

I shut my emotions off once. I am a painfully empathic person. I feel people a little too much, to the point where sometimes it feels like their state of being is a bright light shining directly into my eyes. Sometimes I even play dumb, pretend I don’t know what is really up, just to avoid seeming creepy from the intense connection I feel to pretty much everyone I meet.

I shut off my emotions because they make me vulnerable. And I’ve been burned by that white hot light too many times. But love is about opening up and being vulnerable around someone who is also willing to be vulnerable around you. I never understood that before I met my wife, Jinny.

That vulnerability came into full focus when we stepped into the OR for her c-section. They said our baby was going to be 11lbs, and had to come out. When she went under the knife I realized how much I genuinely cared about the outcome of the situation! It sounds callous or weird maybe, but detachment is a reflex for me, and to stare directly into the light terrified me.

But I stared, and I felt.