Why Am I So Emotional: The Story of Anne with an E

If you are a reader, you may have heard of the classic, ‘Anne of Green Gables’.

If you are a TV show watcher, you may have heard of the show, ‘Anne with an E’, based on the novel.

Growing up, Anne of Green Gables was one of my most favourite books. It was one I returned to over and over, whenever I didn’t have anything else to read or if I’d finished up my library card quota for the week. Till date, Anne remains one of my favourite protagonists.

She was a little girl who carried her heart on her sleeve and grew up into a young woman who listened to her heart, flinging it up to the sky so that it became one of the stars and rained her dreams down upon her. She was wishful, dreamy, head up in the clouds, fierce, loyal, loving to a fault and adventurous.

She was also an orphan.

Adopted when she was 11 years old by a middle-aged pair of siblings, a brother (Matthew Cuthbert) and sister (Marilla Cuthbert), Anne grows up on a little island somewhere in Canada. It’s been years since I’ve read the book but I think it was Prince Edward Island.

One evening, when she’s crying her heart out because she’s had a fight with her best friend, Marilla says worriedly, “I worry the world will crush you because you don’t live a balanced life, child. You are either extremely happy or extremely sad – always swinging from one extreme to the other.”

Anne says defiantly, “I would rather feel too much than not feel at all.”

All these years later, it’s the one thing I remember from the book. I’m sure I’ve paraphrased the above but the sheer beauty of the sentiment has stayed with me.

Marilla was worried that Anne wasn’t good at managing emotions.

Anne, on the other hand, never once asked herself, “Why am I so emotional?”

She accepted herself as she was and rolled with life’s punches, finding “kindred spirits” like her who also “felt” too much.

As an adult reflecting on the novel, I can see the emotional pain she must have carried as well. Abandoned as a baby and brought up in an orphanage until she was adopted by two people who didn’t know very much about raising children, she must have naturally experienced trauma.

And her way of coping was the opposite of what many may have done – where they may have shut down emotionally, putting up walls, she chose to feel everything and give her heart readily to anyone she loved. At least, by giving, she would receive the love she had craved all her life.

To me, that feels an awful lot like emotional healing: the more she gave, the more the Universe filled her up. She got back whatever she gave out, tenfold. As she grew up, went to University, married the love of her life and had kids, she was able to give her children the love she had never received from her biological parents.

Marilla and Matthew were the first human beings in her life to treat her with care and affection. It’s a powerful lesson in how a little can go a long, long way.

And to think that they never wanted her, in the first place. They had been looking to adopt a boy to help out around their farm but the orphanage sent Anne instead.

A “mistake” that was the will of the Universe all along.

Because it healed all of them and allowed a little girl to live out the life of her dreams.

The best part?

Till the end of her life, through ups and downs, losses and death, gain and joy, Anne always “felt too much.” She remained spunky, vivacious, generous, bawling her eyes out when she was sad and laughing her lungs out when she was happy. She remained true to who she saw herself to be, the world be damned.

She was herself. And that, right there, is the secret of living – being yourself.