Butterfly
Have you ever got yourself butterflied?
You know, when in certain moment you feel like something tickles your stomach.
When you feel such an excitement, and all of the sudden your stomach feels fluttery inside.
Or when you are about to get on stage to deliver a speech, or to perform a solo number with your musical instrument.
That’s butterfly.
-
I’m not trying to be creepy here—by “that’s butterfly” it doesn’t mean that you somehow swallow a butterfly and then you can feel it flips its wings inside your intestine, trying to make you throw up so it can survive. No—that’d be totally horrible. Because why would anyone swallow a butterfly, a live one? Okay. Let’s not get into this… This is not what I want to journal about.
I looked through the internet to get to know more about Butterfly Feeling, and this is what I found.
“Butterflies in the stomach is a phenomenon characterized by the physical sensation of a “fluttery” feeling in the stomach. This sensation can be a physical sensation related to the body’s fight or flight response or it can be an ineffable experience related to the psychology of love or nervousness and excitement.”
I was drowned into an interesting discussion with Kalie (my lovely lunch friend) yesterday after I dumped my lunch tray and came back to the table with a flushed face—if I’m a kind of human whose cheeks turn red, mine was probably as red and bright as tomatoes—and Kalie knew that expression because she asked me right away.
“What happened?”
I looked at her. “See this face?” I asked back, pointing to my face. “It’s happy.”
“I can see that,” Kalie nodded and her eyes widened with curiosity. “What happened?”
“Nothing,” I responded, “I just got butterflied.”
And that’s how it all started.
Kalie asked me what made me nervous. I said I wasn’t nervous. She insisted I was. I rejected that. I said I was happy. Then Kalie said butterfly feeling is a feeling of nervousness. For a second I thought about it and came up with a conclusion.
I was happily nervous.
-
Our discussion didn’t end just like that, we ended up “arguing” each other’s opinion hahaha but then the thought of being “happily nervous” haunted me for the rest of my day. I kept thinking about it, and… kept getting myself being struck with it.
Isn’t it possible to feel “happily nervous”? You feel happiness and nervousness at the same time? Think about it. When you walk down the hallway and run into a random person who happens to have the most beautiful smile you’ve ever seen, you are wonderstruck and a few steps later you feel like you want to see that smile again. Then time passes by and then you walk down the hallway again, and for the second time you spot the person whose smile you really long to see, and there the person goes, so perfectly, with a smile on his face. As you walk pass the person, do you feel some kind of happiness? You are happy because you get to see the smile for the second time and you can’t help but smile, but in the same time you feel the nervousness because you don’t want anybody to see your change in expressions and your muffled, happy squeal. I might not describe this right. But still, do you see what I mean by this? Do you see how it is SO possible to feel happily nervous?
(It’s okay if you don’t. Everyone has different perspective in life and there’s nothing wrong with that. And right now I’m sharing you mine!)
Butterfly feeling probably one of my most favorite feelings I’ve ever felt. I like getting butterflied. It sends shivers to my body, all over through my veins and comes out as a huge chunk of feeling that draws smile on my face. It comes out as a happiness. It makes me happy.
