From the aerial high of a blimp ride to the sobering depths of intensive care unit monitors, my life has spanned the full spectrum of life’s extremes.

Funny, how both ends of the emotional gamut tend to counterbalance one another, no?

When I climbed aboard the Goodyear Blimp, the thrill of taking such a ride made my heart skip a beat or two. Yet short days later, my heart stuck in my throat, as I stood watching life-support systems beep and pump in order to keep my closest cousin hovering this side of life’s final door.

Why must we experience such extremes? Why do the peaks always seem to plummet into valleys? Do the emotional equations always have to balance out equally on both sides?

Now I don’t claim to have any great philosophical gift, but after living through a whole mountain range of emotional ascents and descents I have come to realize that both extremes are necessary for life’s landscape to have any character at all (and character, I’ve been told, does stick out all over me.)

The day I took my blimp ride, I’m sure my colleagues at The Holmes County Bargain Hunter showed great restraint in curbing their desire to stuff rags in my mouth or tie me to a chair, as I bounced off the walls in anticipation of my high-flying adventure.

A few short years ago I would have swallowed all that exuberance and showed a calm, cool exterior to my fellow workers. But I have finally come to understand the costly price for such repression.

When you keep building up all that pressure, sooner or later, the pot will crack. And I have the proof sitting right here on my desk -- The Crackpot’s cracked pot (which gives this column its name, by the way).

I keep it as a reminder that old habits do die hard.

So now, whether I’m whooping and bouncing off walls or crying my heart out on the shoulder of a friend, I’m finally learning to let myself experience my emotions rather than trying to cover them up or change them into some other more "politically correct" response.

I’ve also come to understand something else: living the "abundant life" means experiencing the entire spectrum of human emotions, not just life's blessings. As long as I continue to feel, I know that I am truly alive.

Hence, if you feel like jumping up and hollering DO IT! Or if you have an uncontrollable urge to break into tears (or song), let it all flow.

Sometimes, we have a hard time giving ourselves permission to do that, though, right?

If that’s the case for you (as it still quite often can be for me), just tell them The Crackpot told you to do it. And if anybody should look at you funny, tell them it’s good medicine for the soul.

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