Give Me Your Tired, Your Grouchy, Your Exhausted Masses Longing to Feel Glee

Let's talk about our feelings.

Just in time for Valentine’s Day, a column to help you get in touch with your feelings — provided you are still experiencing them and have not completely dissociated. Even if you have, you might find this helpful.

More often than not, if someone asks how I am — a friend, someone in a shop, a co-worker in passing — I’ll reflexively respond with an upbeat, “I’m good!” And then the insufferable part of my brain reminds me the response is grammatically incorrect, that I should have responded, “I am well” or “I am fine.” Then, whatever zone is assigned to politeness scolds me for not saying, “thank you.”

I may have mentioned this before but the gerbil responsible for powering the wheel inside my head has a lot going on. Sometimes I wonder if he has fallen off entirely.

Anyway, the response is generally the same, generally positive. On rare occasions when even a grammatically incorrect “good” feels like too much, I may downshift to an “okay” and if it’s a particularly rough day — “oh, you know.”

My dad had a great line he often used. “I think I’m here,” he would say, followed by a mischievous grin. I once worked with a guy who adopted, “sparkling and buttery” as his response.

Generally speaking, none of us are particularly specific when it comes to that question. It’s quietly understood the exchange is designed to be less like an actual conversation and more like paying a social toll.

After all, we’re not going to get into it with the barista.

“How are you? What can I get you?”

“Incredibly anxious, actually; uneasy, a little avoidant; I mean, grateful, obviously, but tired, little angry…I’ll have a double espresso poured directly into my mouth.”

We just don’t do that. (Well, I don’t know about the espresso into the mouth thing, to be honest. Nothing would surprise me when it comes to human behavior these days.)

The truth is: when we go beyond being polite with strangers or busy in our personal lives, we don’t actually know how we feel. It can be difficult to put it into words. We may not even know where to start.

The How We Feel Project is a nonprofit organization created by scientists, designers, engineers and psychologists to help people better understand their emotions. They do it with, what else, an app.

My husband first told me about it. It’s free, so we both decided to try it out. I will admit to meeting the whole concept with more than a little sarcasm.

“Oh brother, what’s this?” I asked. He laughed. “Now, hang on. Give it a chance!”

When you open the app, it simply asks which color describes best how you are feeling in the moment. Red is for unpleasant and high energy emotions (think annoyed or panicked.) Yellow: high energy, pleasant (joyful or amazed.) Blue: low energy, unpleasant (depressed or meh — yes, “meh” is actually a choice) and then there is green: low energy, pleasant (peaceful or safe.)

The examples I provided here are just a few of the dozens of feelings there are to choose from in each category. Each has a short description helping users zero in on exactly what they are feeling at any given time — far beyond just good or not so good.

Whatever the mood, the app encourages users to explore specifics with each check-in. It’s basically a journal without all the writing. Over time, you can see patterns throughout days and weeks and even months of what you feel, when you feel it, where you are and who you are with. It’s great for anyone looking to dabble in a little mindfulness and/or nerd out on Venn diagrams and color-coded charts.

The app’s “tools” section provides added resources including short videos and exercises aimed at helping people manage their emotions. I found one this week called “Write Yourself Happy.” The video explains researchers found a person’s mood can be significantly improved simply by writing about a positive experience for three consecutive days. Study participants reported feeling happier and more confident after taking the time to recall positive events and experiences.

I’ll admit that’s one of those things I find interesting when I’m feeling relaxed and curious and makes me roll my eyes when I’m stressed or irritable.

“Give me a break,” I’ll stubbornly say before begrudgingly trying it and then sheepishly admitting that it works.

How we feel — really — can be everything from a gift to a burden to a mystery — sometimes all in one day — but our emotions are some of the only things we can truly and uniquely call our own. Getting to know and understand them, may be one of the greatest gifts we can give ourselves.

This essay originally appeared in my column in the February 13, 2025 edition of the Perry Herald in Perry, NY