Posts tagged with "sadness"

The Nature Of It All

I have to get this down before I lose it.

The new Starsailor album is out this month, and I’m not sure if I’ll buy it. There’s some­thing about the gen­er­al sound of Starsailor songs that evoke an almost inef­fa­ble emo­tion in me. I nev­er even knew they exist­ed until last month, but for some rea­son, their 2001 Love Is Here album cov­er is odd­ly famil­iar. Every time I see the sun-washed tracks falling into the hori­zon, I get an odd sense of déjá vu.

As one who rarely has such an ephemer­al, mys­ti­cal expe­ri­ence, this strikes me as a extreme­ly poignant thing. I feel as if I know this album, that I’ve seen it before, even had emo­tions asso­ci­at­ed with it. It’s some­thing I can’t explain, and whether the emo­tions are good are bad, I can’t recall.

Their music moves me nonethe­less. The chord pro­gres­sions are unpre­dictable yet dul­cet, bit­ter yet sweet. I can’t decide if it’s sun­set or sun­rise music, and the album cov­er serves to empha­size this equiv­o­cal­i­ty. I can’t even tell if the music makes me hap­py or sad.

And so remains my prob­lem. Do I want to lis­ten to this music or not? I always find it odd that some­one would not want to think about or expe­ri­ence some­thing sim­ply because it makes them sad. Doing so seems to be so cow­ard­ly, as if one is run­ning from one’s self.

Yet the prob­lem remains, with oth­er music as well, and as clear as this log­ic is for me I find it dif­fi­cult to queue up cer­tain songs. Listening to The Postal Service brings back so many amaz­ing, unfor­get­table mem­o­ries, but so many painful thoughts as well.

I choose not to ignore either, and end up being emo­tion­al­ly torn, unclear in my heart and in my mind.

Sadness Makes Me Jittery

I can feel myself get­ting hyper again. I’m still try­ing to fig­ure out why. The last time I felt like this was a lit­tle over four years ago, but I was a dif­fer­ent per­son at the time so all emo­tion­al influ­ences had a dif­fer­ent effect. Every song makes me want to sing aloud, every joke makes me want to die laugh­ing. This is prob­a­bly just the man­i­fes­ta­tion of a sim­ple excess of emo­tions, over­flow­ing in my mind. I doubt it will last long.

I Cry

I came home yes­ter­day with a note on my desk, and it said that Dolly was being tak­en for a walk.

My first reac­tion was dis­be­lief. I could­n’t under­stand how some­one could just take my cat for a walk. I was beside myself with shock. I felt vio­lat­ed. I felt insult­ed. I felt ter­ri­ble.

I had­n’t walked Dolly yet, for sev­er­al rea­sons. First of all, I did­n’t have her microchipped, so any chance that she gets away would be dev­as­tat­ing. Secondly, I had­n’t decid­ed whether I should take her out yet, since she might miss being out­side too much after her first time. That was a big deci­sion for me, one that I had­n’t made yet, but one which was made for me.

The most impor­tant point is that Dolly had her first walk with­out me. I was­n’t there to see how she reacts with the world, I was­n’t able to be the first per­son to let her out­side.

I stood in my room for ten min­utes in dis­be­lief. I could­n’t even wrap my head around how some­one could do such a thing, to walk into my home and vio­late my feel­ings in such a way. I put on my head­phones, put on my fuck off playlist, and sat under my desk, shak­ing my head. This was the most offen­sive thing any­one has ever done to me in my life.

When the real­iza­tion that there was no oth­er first walk sunk in, I start­ed to sob. The shock segued into depres­sion, and I slumped onto the ground, pulling my hair, still in dis­be­lief. I cried for a good while, some­thing I haven’t done for eight or nine years. I cried so hard that my tear ducts felt like they were being sucked of their flu­ids and the walls were start­ing to touch each oth­er. By the end of it, my eyes had the old famil­iar swollen feel­ing, and I was exhaust­ed. I show­ered and tried to wash the mucus from my hair.

The whole sit­u­a­tion has made me more ful­ly under­stand how much I care about Dolly. I already knew how much I cared about her, and I appre­ci­at­ed her before, but I nev­er real­ized the extent of it until now. I don’t see her as a pet. I see her as a child.

It’s also made me think about the nature of good and bad, and how much of a bal­ance there is. I nev­er real­ly believed that either exist­ed, since one bad thing gen­er­al­ly spawns a good thing, such as mur­der help­ing to con­trol over­pop­u­la­tion, or geno­cide lead­ing to beau­ti­ful art/culture. Of course, I’ve nev­er been through either, so my thoughts are quite lim­it­ed.

I just can’t see the good in this sit­u­a­tion. I can’t see how this can be any­thing but bad. I haven’t learned any­thing from this, one of the only pos­si­ble jus­ti­fi­ca­tions for it hap­pen­ing, and I have lost even more faith in human­i­ty.

Seeing the good in this would be healthy for me.

Helplessness

I found the diary of a bulim­ic girl. She seemed so lost, not know­ing what to do. It was one of the only times where the sim­ple read­ing of a diary tru­ly scared me. The image of find­ing blood on one’s fin­gers after throw­ing up is what real­ly affect­ed me. I felt so help­less, so sad that there was noth­ing I could do.

I’m not sure what it is about myself, but I always feel like I should try to relate and help some­one who’s depressed. I haven’t com­plete­ly been there myself (I’ve nev­er been com­plete­ly depressed or euphor­ic), so often I feel like it’s not my place to be talk­ing about it. Yet I feel like I can under­stand such strong emo­tions.

It makes me feel so for­lorn when some­one seems like they’re stuck in a hole, with no way out. I always felt that when I was in that hole, noth­ing could help me out, only the under­stand­ing of anoth­er per­son. That per­son is gone for me now, hav­ing changed my life, nev­er know­ing it her­self.

I real­ize now that I want to help peo­ple in emo­tion­al dis­tress because of how I looked up to that per­son. My admi­ra­tion for her has made me want emu­late her, to help oth­er peo­ple the same way in which she helped me. I still remem­ber how much I need­ed that help. Perhaps if I was able to change some­one else’s life, then they could be bet­ter off than being stuck in the hole.

It’s so dif­fi­cult to cure one­self of such emo­tion­al dis­tress. After a cer­tain point is reached, one feels so help­less, as if noth­ing can make things bet­ter, and noth­ing will ever get bet­ter. Thoughts even­tu­al­ly lead to sui­cide, life goes black, ash­es turn to mud. It’s some­thing that can’t be escaped alone.

I wish there was some­thing I could do.