Death to Non-Chalance

Bring back big feelings

Thank you for the emotions. Those words lingered like perfume on a sweater. They followed me throughout the day while I got on the bus, boarded the plane, and arrived at my destination.

Earlier that day, my partner and I walked to the bus stop to say goodbye before I headed to the airport for my weekend trip to Paris. We share the love language of physical touch. Around friends and family, we tone it down, but when it’s just us we definitely put the A in PDA.

We stood at the crosswalk that cloudy afternoon, showering each other in hugs and kisses while we waited for the red hand to turn green. A young woman, no older than me, approached us asking to take our picture. She found our affection for each other romantic.

After airdropping us the photos, she left us with the final words, “Thank you for the emotions.”

Throughout the day and into the weekend, those five words played in my head. Nobody had ever thanked me for my emotions. Her response shocked me because most of the time, we praise people for keeping their emotions at bay. It got me thinking about how we portray ourselves to the world around us.

We tend to suppress strong emotions. We go about our days only tapping into a well of convenient emotions, publicly accepted emotions. We prefer to remain mysterious and aloof in our self-presentation to the world, finding it cooler to appear unbothered.

We weren’t born this way. As children, we wear our hearts on our sleeves, expressing every emotion no matter how big or small. We cried over spilled milk, threw tantrums over toys, got ecstatic for Christmas, and squeezed our parents tight. We gleamed with pride after winning a game of tag or getting a gold star in class. Our youthful innocence allowed us to access our emotions with ease.

A shift occurs around middle and high school. We pull away, become distant, and hide our true feelings, creating a facade of ourselves.

In seventh-grade science class, I sat next to one of the “popular boys” in our grade. Our teacher passed back the grades from a test most of the class bombed. I asked him how he did. “Not so good,” he said while he covered his 95%. “Yeah, me neither,” I told him while sliding my 98% in my folder.

In high school I pretended that I didn’t want the roses on Valentine’s Day or the incredibly unique and thoughtful promposal. I studied for the ACTs obsessively behind the scenes while trying to hide my care for them to my friends. My performative non-chalance played a part in the collective unspoken agreement to act cooler, smaller, and more detached than how we actually felt.

This bleeds into adulthood. We worship non-chalance, using it as a form of self-protection.

In conversations, we use humor as a defense mechanism to avoid showing an ounce of care. We appear detached from outcomes we secretly desire. We downplay achievements that we should celebrate.

In the dating scene, we text back slowly, play games, and go months without asking what their intentions are. We wear our hearts on our cheeks rather than on our sleeves. This costs us any chance of true connection and vulnerability with those around us.

Some of life’s most beautiful moments happen when we’re tapped into our full range of emotions.

How beautiful is it to laugh so hard with your friends that you’re wheezing, stomach hurting, and tears streaming down your face?

This year I attended the Madrid and New York City marathons as a spectator. I found myself teary-eyed watching the runners while their friends, family, and loved ones screamed and cheered for them on the sidelines. The sense of community and witnessing people show up loudly for each other moved me.

I find that the richest human experiences are often the messy ones. The ones filled with passion and excitement.

In a recent Subway Takes interview, Austin Butler said, “Embarrassment is an underexplored emotion, go out there and make a fool of yourself.” I think about that often. How so many people hold themselves back for fear of being seen. We would rather mute ourselves than let our true selves shine.

Getting older I find myself experiencing a broader range of emotions both positive and negative. For years I felt stunted, unable to properly emote. My emotions were locked away with no spare key accessible. I found it difficult to cry and my range of emotions felt limited to happy, annoyed, and pissed off.

I layered witty banter and sarcasm into everything, never allowing anyone to catch a glimpse of care behind my words. I carefully curated a version of myself to appear as the chill girl: the girl who didn’t take shit from anyone, the girl who never pried men she was seeing for their intentions, the girl who accomplished things without needing to advertise it.

This led to a once-a-year, messy crashout of every emotion that I suppressed.

I grew tired of this. My ambivalence toward the life around me brought few to no benefits. I realized that if I wanted others to care, I needed to show them something to care about.

I took baby steps. Instead of using humor and banter in conversations, I told people what I actually thought. I told my friends and coworkers my goal of moving out of Dallas. In doing so, they became invested in my journey.

One morning, I burst into tears while my friend and I ate bagels. In response my friend met me with comfort, support, and softness. By letting myself unravel, I created a space of vulnerability that invited empathy and care.

I stopped downplaying my accomplishments and let people celebrate them. I let myself feel proud, disappointed, hopeful, furious, affectionate, and honest.

By embracing the emotions when they came, I stopped them from piling up and drowning me.

I say death to non-chalance! Acting like you don’t care is no longer sexy.

Being intentional is sexy.

Being emotional is sexy.

Being honest is sexy.

Being big in your emotional expression is sexy.

Looking at my relationship, I poke fun at our lovey dovey nature. But, honestly, I love our overly affectionate behavior. I turn into a school girl with a crush every time we’re together. I don’t want to hide my feelings, in fact I want to yell them from the rooftops. Allowing myself to act childish, silly, loving, and smitten has freed me because I’m allowing myself to express how I feel.

The truth is, people only love non-chalant in theory. We may romanticize the cool, calm, and collected character. But we remember the movies where the man shows up at the door with the boombox.

We fall in love with perfectly imperfect characters: the unapologetic lovers, the chaotic feelers, the dreamers, the achievers.

Think Robin Williams in Dead Poets Society.

Think Sebastian and Mia in La La Land.

Think Ted Lasso, Elle Woods, or Penelope Featherington.

So let’s stop pretending that we don’t care. Let’s fall in love with expressing and feeling. Let’s become the unapologetic lovers, chaotic feelers, dreamers, and achievers in our own lives.

Death to non-chalance! And thank you for the emotions.