Slippery Little Things: An Essay on Feelings

By Haven Duddy

The essay is about feelings - the tiny, slippery moments that move through us before we can name them. It's an exploration of emotional nuance, self-understanding, and the quiet truths that shape how we respond to the world.

Feelings are complicated - maybe the most complicated thing in the whole world.

More complicated than facts, more complicated than logic, more complicated than anything we try to hold still.

They're like the wind that moves through us.

Sometimes gentle.

Sometimes wild.

Sometimes powerful enough to shake the whole foundation of our life.

Sometimes they make perfect sense.

Sometimes they make none.

And sometimes we feel things we wish we didn't -

isn't that the truth?

Feelings are things we can control,

until suddenly we can't.

They come when they want.

They leave when they want.

They don't ask permission.

We can't force someone else to feel what we feel.

We can't convince anyone to love the way we love.

And, as I learned over and over,

how someone feels about something usually has very little to do with us at all.

And feelings change.

God, do they change.

One day something feels like the most important truth of your life -

the next day it dissolves like it was never there.

Where did it go?

Why did it go?

How did something that felt SO real just......disappear?

I don't know.

I still don't understand it.

I think that's why I've been chasing feelings my entire life -

because they never made sense to me,

not the way facts did.

Facts can be slippery too,

but feelings......

they're a different kind of slippery.

They slip right through your fingers and still somehow hold your whole heart.

And the wild things is this:

as confusing as they are.

feelings are the one thing that are completely honest in the moment they arrive.

But they're not all good.

Some feelings are beautiful, love, joy, excitement, connection.

And some are awful, envy, loneliness, fear, the "I'm not enough" ache that lands in places you don't want to admit.

You don't get to choose which ones come.

You don't get a menu.

You don't get to say.

"I'll take love and joy today, but I'll pass on jealousy and shame."

It doesn't work that way.

You can try to be numb.

A lot of people do.

But here's the truth nobody likes saying out loud:

You don't get to feel the good without feeling the bad.

If you numb one, you numb both.

It's all or nothing.

I've tried both.

Feeling everything and feeling nothing.

Nothing is easier for a little while -

but it's also colorless, flavorless, lifeless.

A flat line pretending to be peace.

Feeling everything?

It's messy.

It's overwhelming.

It's too much sometimes.

But it's ALIVE.

And even in the mess,

I've had moments where I've lectured myself:

"Haven, stop being ridiculous.

Use your brain for once."

And maybe that line makes me laugh now -

because the truth is,

how we feel about things

is probably the only thing that actually matters.

Because here's what I've started to believe.

Feelings are steps.

Every time you feel something new,

you grow a little more.

You rise a little higher.

You see something you didn't see before.

And I think all of us have feelings we haven't even felt yet -

entire emotional worlds inside us we haven't touched.

The range we allow ourselves to feel

becomes the range of the life we get to live.

The more you are willing to explore your own feelings,

the more you learn to trust them

And the most you trust them,

the more you can understand what they're trying to tell you.

Because feelings point to things:

-what's right in your life

-to what's wrong

-to what needs to change

-to what needs to be protected

-to what's calling for you

-to what's hurting you

-to what's waiting for you

Maybe feelings are a second set of eyes-

a way of seeing the world from the inside out.

Because we're all going through life individually,

and if we didn't have feelings....

how else would we know what any of this means?

Maybe they're meant to be a guide -

not perfect, not permanent,

but honest while they last.

Because the only thing we actually know about feelings is this:

They're going to change.

Always.

They always change.

So you might as well embrace them when they're here.

Or at least recognize them.

Because even the worst ones won't last forever.

And even the best ones won't stay the same.

Nothing stays the same.

Not pain.

Not joy.

Not confusion.

Not clarity.

Everything moves.

Everything shifts.

Everything changes.

And maybe -

just maybe -

that's the hidden heart of feelings:

They're not here to be right.

They're here to be felt.