How do you feel today?

When I was 13, someone gifted me a poster with smiley faces (emoticons as they are called today) and the caption read  "How do you feel today?" I thought, at that time, it was the cutest (don't use that word too often) thing ever. Every morning I'd get up and stare at the poster plastered on my wall, wondering "How do I want to feel today?" At that age, and most of  the time growing up, the answer was nearly always 'Happy'. But as I transversed into adulthood, those emoticons needed some serious revamping.

Every e-mail or networking site have their version of the the smiley face characters to suit peoples' moods, but none of them include the real emotions that I've been feeling. I guess technology can only mimic humans to a certain extent, or maybe it's been kept away from the darker, more turbulent side of the human psyche, which may be a good thing (think terminator!)

But as I sit here trying to put my emotions into words, I wish there were emoticons to pictorially show what I feel. I want those computer geeks, sitting in their secluded wired rooms, to come up with something that really suits my mood. I want an emoticon for 'I feel euphoric and never want this feeling to end!' Would that be a colon followed by a double or triple D (:DDD)? But that just wouldn't do justice to the feeling of singing in the rain or flying through a night sky on a magic carpet, would it? How about one for 'I feel like trying something new today. (wink!!)'? I just visualized that one, and honestly, having a smiley face dipicting that mood just totally undermined it. And is there nothing in the emoticon world that can convey ' I feel like I achieve anything!'? As inept as I am in doing most things, there are certain times when a girl feels like she's done some good in her life and can continue it without a doubt.

Then again, where are the icons that say 'I feel like shit today'? I don't get up everyday ready to take on the world and fly through my life as if on a lark and a song. I do have my off days. My hair's a constant mess, my mood swings like a monkey in heat, and I get up ... feeling like shit! What about an icon for ' I wanna kick someone's ass'? More often than not, that's the feeling I've been living with. This icon would have to symbolize the emotion between anger and murder. What about one for 'I feel so lost and want to jump off the nearest cliff''? No, these are not suicidal thoughts, just a feeling of complete hopelessness when things I've tried so hard to achieve or do for others come to naught.

We've all been there, going through a myriad of emotions in a day that only seem to get numerous and sometimes deeper in times of trouble or when everything is more than hunky dory. So why can't the cyber world, that most of us now live in, emulate those? I suppose that's the beauty of being human. We all feel, however hard assed one may think they are. Yet every one of us shows 'their' emotions in their own way. And everyone's interpretation of someone else's emotion  is based on personal perception. Wouldn't it be a dull world if we all felt the same thing at the same time?

Now that makes me feel almost human! ;)PD*