HANNA SHEETS: My upstairs and to the left neighbors yell at each other. It's not every night- maybe just once every other week. And when they do, its just a few minutes, but it's loud. Like decibels louder than it should be. I can't hear it from my living room, but in my bedroom it sounds like it's coming through the AC vent.

Sometimes I feel like praying for them when they're going at it. If it's late, I'll turn on rain sounds to drown them out so I fall back asleep. But sometimes I want to yell back and make it a game for the three of us, so that there's no more room for other sound. Every square inch of the air filled with our abuse towards each other. Then we won't have to worry about feeling anything else. Just the rage.

It's like that one guy on a hike in nature who has his speaker playing so loud because he doesn't want his ears for even a second to feel the space around him. No bird sounds, no hearing his own breath, no noticing the wind. If music is always playing, he won't have to remember that he's a human who has other feelings deeper than his favorite feelings.

It's like when I watch Netflix as soon as I get home and then go to bed and fall asleep mid-scroll, knowing that I need to just start writing, but afraid that if I do, nothing will happen.

So I can postpone and distract myself from the nervous feeling- that not so favorite feeling. There are things I'm distracting myself from- I know I am. I don't know if everyone knows they are, but I know I am.

Last night I was hanging at a close friend's house, with a handful of old friends and a handful of new, and we in a way started sharing about those lesser kind of feelings. The one's we want God to come grab and toss out. I didn't want to share, but I knew I could.

And thats the ticket, I think. I knew I could.

Because I was in a room full of people who were listening.

Because it cant always be loud and angry or music or movies

But there's a really good thing in being able to lean into people, even before I spill. Safe landing people, safe places people. The tried and true, Sunday afternoon hangs kind, like a flight attendant who gives you an extra drink when she sees you cry kind, but deeper than that and every day, in your corner, watching your six, watching your heart, reading a room for you before you get there kind.

I told the room of that kind about that waiting for the other shoe to drop feeling. Because expecting a sad thing in the middle of a good thing has been on me like a backpack. And as I told them, nothing really happened, but I felt closer and less afraid and like I wasn't alone. I tapped closer to the reality of the kind of people I have found.

I finally stopped. I let myself ask God, "How long has that been there?" And I showed my cards to my friends.

And it just made me see love, backpack and all. Maybe its not just about sitting with the deeper feelings to begin with, but finding the people to show them to.