Don’t Fast Forward The Darkness
I don’t know if it’s an American thing, a growing-up-in-New-York thing, or even just a thing that all 20-somethings seem to be experiencing right now. Sometimes I wonder if it’s something that possibly I’m just going through right now, though. It’s the lifestyle of constantly rushing, scurrying, and even forcing things to happen. I’m always questioning when things will pass and when I will get to the next stage in life. I’m always hoping that things could just fast forward. It’s not about the experience anymore or the feeling that some situations, people, places, etc. deliver to us. Was it ever about that though? It’s about getting to the end result. We want the finish line already, and we want it now.
We are sitting and standing still, but we are never calm—never tranquil, never relaxed. Sometimes sitting down for dinner delivers us more anxiety and stress than solitude and serenity. I often have trouble shutting my mind off and letting it freely wander from the constant questioning, thinking, and worrying out about things. I think about the present state, and how much I want it to pass over me. I want the current feelings of sadness to leave my mind alone and fade away. I’m trying so hard to just escape my emotions by keeping busy—taking on 20 things at once. I have a problem having absolutely nothing to do. I get bored, and I want my mind to stay cluttered sometimes. I am constantly running away from my emotions. I just want to feel like I’m not always in a rush to escape reality. Reality is a struggle. Reality isn’t always happy.
Sometimes I don’t know if it’s depression or just a broken heart. When you’re in the midst of a bad mood, you don’t know when it will leave. Will it ever leave? I sometimes wake up disoriented and my body can’t stop shaking—frantically searching for that pillow to hold. The pillow is smeared with tears and black mascara, but I can’t remember why or what made feel me so wounded. It’s the deepest form of pain and hurt when you don’t even know why you feel scared, frightened, or sad. When we don’t have some rational reasoning to why or how we began to felt some way, it leaves us feeling unsure if we will ever find out. All we want is the answer for all our problems without even trying to figure them out ourselves. We really don’t want to go through the process of things. We want the end result of being content and satisfied without dealing with the obstacles and struggles. Who’s to say that is so terrible?
I’m living with open wounds and a cold heart. I’m starting to realize that I’m supposed to feel this way for a while—for as long as while may be is unknown. I’m supposed to feel a little lonely, a little broken, a little empty. But the thing is that it doesn’t last forever, it never does. You’re going to wake up and look at the sun shining through your window, wishing that it faded back to dark yet again. Things taste bad, people are annoying, and jokes aren’t funny. And then people start to force you into feeling better by buying you things or saying that you just need someone else to walk into your life. I’m growing exhausted from the “It’s time to move on,”s or the “You deserve better”s.
No one is in charge of how long you should feel sad, how happy you should feel right now, or how much time you want to spend grieving over a situation. We are often trying too hard to find happiness and fast forward past the sadness, so we distract ourselves with whatever we can to ignore our current darkness. You need to cry and you need to feel sad if you are ever going to feel happy. Experiencing heartbreak and betrayal allows for one to greater appreciate the beauty of faithful love. It’s undeniably true that we are all in charge of our own happiness. Your sad times will come in waves, but you can form your happiness to last forever.