Emotional Range of a Teaspoon

I woke up this morning and thought of this conversation from Harry Potter, and how accurately it described my emotional state lately.

“Well, obviously, she’ feeling very sad, because of Cedric dying. Then I expect she’s feeling confused because she liked Cedric and now she likes Harry, and she can’t work out who she likes best. Then she’ll be feeling guilty, thinking it’s an insult to Cedric’s memory to be kissing Harry at all, and she’ll be worrying about what everyone else might say about her if she starts going out with Harry. And she probably can’t work out what her feelings toward Harry are anyway, because he was the one who was with Cedric when Cedric died, so that’s all very mixed up and painful. Oh, and she’s afraid she’s going to be thrown off the Ravenclaw Quidditch team because she’s been flying so badly.”

A slightly stunned silence greeted the end of this speech, then Ron said, “One person can’t feel all that at once, they’d explode.”

“Just because you have the emotional range of a teaspoon doesn’t’ mean we all have,” said Hermione nastily.- Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. by J.K Rowling pg 459

My emotions have been all over the place – and when people ask the standard, “How are you today?”, I have to pause and think, “Is this the time and place and person that I can open up and really share how I feel, or should I say something innocous like, “fine”, “ok”, ‘getting by” or, “still here”. I don’t want to lie, so I usually try to come up with a couple of words that could be accepted as flippant, or as a clue that I’m having a rough day, and then the the other person decide where to go from there in the conversation.
I think Michael J. Fox sums up what I am trying to say much better than I can.

So if you go up to someone and say, "How are you? Are you OK?" I mean, that tells me I'm supposed to not be OK. Just ask me if I'm OK, I'll tell you I'm OK...and take my word for it. Or I'll tell you I'm not OK...and then be prepared to reap what you've sown by asking me the question.
Read more: Michael J Fox Interview - Michael J Fox on Family and Tracy Pollan - Good Housekeeping

That’s the key – being prepared to reap what has been sown. I understand that most people aren’t prepared to deal with the rush of emotions that is bottled up inside me most of the time right now, and most of the time I don’t want to let them out either, but sometimes I do feel like I need to explode and that is when a listening ear, or at least a warm body is most appreciated.
Tears are nothing to be afraid of, they are very cathartic . The presence of another being brings love and peace into the equation, and that person can help you to come full circle to where you can face the day again.