The Most Emotionally Intelligent Person in the Room (Still Cries in their Car)

They say emotional intelligence is a superpower.
Cool. So why do I still feel like the dumbest one in the room?

I know how to name my feelings.
I know how to hold space for yours.
I can walk someone else through their breakup, their spiral, their deeply rooted childhood pattern like it’s my part-time job.

But then I get home and stare at the wall for an hour because someone didn’t text me back.

Where’s the trophy?

And it gets better.

I can feel like absolute shit for stepping outside my comfort zone—for you. For something you asked for.
And when you leave me standing in the cold, in the silence that stretches like emotional purgatory, I don’t get mad.
No. I apologize.
Because clearly, whatever I did—that you requested—must’ve made you uncomfortable. And now it’s my job to fix it.

What. The. Fuck.

The irony is that people keep telling me I'm “good at feelings.” Like it's a compliment. Like it's something I studied. Like I passed the test.

But the truth is: I write from the middle. Not the finish line.
I don’t feel wise. I feel like I’m holding the manual upside down, yelling “DOES THIS FEELING GO HERE?”

I’m not emotionally intelligent. I’m just emotionally fluent.
There’s a difference.

The people who think they have it figured out write advice.
I write truth.
And truth? Is messy.

It’s lonely to be the one who “gets it.”
The one who always knows what’s wrong but can’t always fix it.
The one who can name the storm but still gets soaked.

So no, I’m not your emotionally enlightened friend.
I’m just the one who feels everything loudly, overthinks it in five directions, and then writes about it like it’s a TED Talk.
But hey, at least I’m not giving advice.
I’m just bleeding a little in public and calling it content.

And here’s the other thing I’ve noticed:
I’m not saying I’ve mastered it yet, but something’s happening.
I’m becoming a human bullshit detector.

The other day, I went to a new meetup group—because unfortunately, that’s one of the few safe social experiments left.

I listened as everyone went around the table and talked about their “passion projects.”
But under the words, I could hear the doubt. The uncertainty. The dead air between sentences.

Some of them were rattling off bullet points like they were reading from a hostage note.
And these were supposed to be the things they cared about.

It was all I could do to keep nodding and smiling when what I really wanted was to jump across the table and shake some life into them.

Superpower?
I don’t know.

But if I’m going to walk around seeing through people’s carefully curated nonsense,
I’m at least going to need the cape and boots.

Preferably in black.
And tailored.
Because if I’m calling out the truth, I might as well look good doing it.

—cinnamon