There is way too much going on right now, and absolutely none if it has gone according to plan.

You know those times when you get knocked down and you grasp and grasp for coping mechanisms to get you back on your feet? Well first off, I have not found a coping mechanism that has helped me yet. Keeping busy helps me get through the day, but when I lay my head down on my pillow at night I don’t feel any peace.

I keep believing that temporary happiness is stability, but it’s not. It never is.

It has been getting more and more difficult for me to sleep these days. I’m exhausted because I can’t sleep at night and all I can do is lie in my bed in the afternoon hoping sleep will take me. It doesn’t. It hasn’t for weeks.

College has brought out every extreme emotion I didn’t even know I was capable of experiencing. And frankly, it’s exhausting. I wanted to glean everything I could from my time here, take advantage of every opportunity, throw caution to the wind.

Well, I got a hurricane.

I just saw a picture on my dashboard that said “The more you care, the more you have to lose.”

In some circumstances, sure, don’t care. When you’re having a bad hair day, when an anon sends you hatemail, when you embarrass yourself in front of your crush. Sure, brush off the trivial things and move on with your life.

But when it comes to big things, the things that really matter, CARE. Yes, sometimes it hurts. It hurts like hell, but what alternative do we have? Do we live our lives in a state of ambivalence out of a perpetual fear of losing? Do we play it safe, sit on the sidelines, and never experience the wins and losses of life?

As much as I’d like to brush off every trial as a slight or minor annoyance, as much as I’d like to just say “whatever”, sometimes it’s more than that. Sometimes, people actually say or do things that hurt my feelings.

Yet people can’t admit that they’re not invincible. Instead we like to pretend we don’t care. We act flippant because we believe it puts us on a higher ground, that we’re “better than that”, but really we’re just running from confrontation, not just with others but with our own emotions.

If something hurts you, it’s okay to admit it. It’s okay to admit that you’re vulnerable. The bravest thing a person can say is, “That really hurt my feelings.” Then tell the person how what they did made you feel. Then listen.

That doesn’t mean they win. That doesn’t mean you lose. Admitting that you’re hurt doesn’t mean you’re weak; it means you’re strong and mature enough to face it and want to fix it.

But no, we’re too cool for feelings. We put our middle fingers up to the world and expect that our complete denial of criticism will make our problems go away. Everything’s just “annoying” and “stupid” and not worth caring about, not worth letting our guard down about.

You can live without passion. You can never fall in love because you’re too scared of getting hurt. You can lose your friends and say you never cared about them anyway. You can feel depressed and inadequate and alone and use whatever defense mechanisms you’ve created to convince yourself that you’re fine.

But if you don’t tell someone that you’re hurt, how will they even know they’re hurting you? If you don’t care, who else will?

Something I’ve learned this year is that no two people can truly be close friends if there isn’t an open line of communication.

If I don’t like you, I promise you will know. If you have feelings for me and I don’t feel the same, I promise I won’t lead you on to avoid hurting your feelings. If you do or say something that upsets me, I promise I will let you know.

Directness is so underrated in our society, and people avoid being direct for fear of confrontation with others as well as confrontation with their own emotions. We think we can just charm and joke our way through life and then it’s smooth sailing. No one can dislike us if we’re charming and funny, right? If we just keep a courteous distance, if we are just mildly nice to everyone, we will be courteously and mildly and unanimously liked.

Things are much less complicated when we aren’t open because there are no emotions involved and emotions are complicated and messy. Once we start being open, making decisions, and forming opinions, we open ourselves up to disagreement and criticism. But what we don’t realize is that our efforts to avoid having enemies also keep us from making and keeping true friends. Mild, courteous joking only goes so far.