Out-of-place Emotion

Summary

The author reflects on the emotional complexities of relocation, drawing parallels between their childhood experiences and a recent move, to understand and process out-of-place emotions as valuable life lessons.

Abstract

The article titled "Out-of-place Emotion" discusses the author's personal journey with relocating, both in childhood and adulthood. The author describes the unexpected sadness felt when moving from a small house to a larger one by the sea, despite the seemingly happy occasion. This emotional response triggers memories of two significant moves in their past. The first was at age three, when their family left their grandparents' home due to family conflict to start a new life in Dinard. The second move occurred at age seven, due to the father's job change following an allergy to flour, which took them to a city with a starkly different culture during an exceptionally harsh winter. These recollections lead the author to contemplate their deep emotional connections to places and people, and the importance of acknowledging and learning from these out-of-place emotions, which can be remnants from a pre-verbal past. The author concludes that such emotions are powerful teachers and that processing them can lead to personal growth and healing.

Opinions

The author believes that out-of-place emotions are indicative of deeper issues that need to be recognized and processed.
They suggest that these emotions can stem from early life experiences, even before one has the ability to articulate them.
The author emphasizes the importance of listening to and learning from one's emotions, as they can guide personal growth and healing.
There is an acknowledgment that emotional attachments to homes, objects, and people are significant and can impact one's emotional state during transitions.
The author implies that relocating can feel like a "petite mort" (a little death), signifying an end to a chapter in life, which can be both sorrowful and a catalyst for transformation.

La petite mort as relocating

Your out-of-places emotions are powerful teachers. It is an entrapped emotion that wants to be recognized and processed. Sometimes they come from before you had words.

Last week, I had to relocate from a small house to a bigger one on the seaside, so I had all the reasons to be happy but I felt so much sadness leaving the old one, that this questioned me.

As I had a moment, I took a bath outside, listening to the countryside noises and getting relaxed. Then suddenly two souvenirs came back to my awareness.

When I was 3, my parents had to leave my grandparents ‘ home because my mother could not stand the mean words of her mother-in-law that minimized my father all day long. They decided to get money from her father and my father’s aunts and uncles to buy a bakery in a city on the seaside, Dinard. I guess they felt anxious and trapped as they had to leave quickly and under a hard conflict. I loved my grandparents and I did not see them again for several years. I missed them.

When I was 7, we had to relocate to another city, nearer from where we came from. My father had declared an allergy to flour and he had to find a new job. He had followed a distance learning and got a new diploma of accounting. We relocated in the middle of the school year, leaving friends and a city I dearly loved, to join a city with a very different mentality, it was like a culture shock for me with much misunderstanding. We arrived during the coldest winter in the century. For several years, I still used to dream about Dinard.

Next day when I came to the old house last week, I felt neutral for the first time.

All my life long I’ve become very attached to people, objects and homes I’ve lived in. I’ve been so obsessed with the passing moments of life. Lastly I questioned this attachment. Now an emotion bubble burst out and all is so simple. Leaving was like a petite mort.

Listen to your out-of-place emotions, they have so much to teach you and they heal you.