When Feelings Aren’t Nice

I grew up in a family where strong feelings of any kind were not allowed. They were, in fact, distinctly not nice.

The message was never spoken, but I absorbed it with my mother’s milk. Tears were a disgrace. Exuberance was, at the very least, undignified. Affection was to be contained, doled out only in acceptably small portions. To descend into anger was to lose the argument, whatever the argument might be. To simply like something or someone without having a clear, logical reason for that l...