Now What?
It’s been about five hours since my nine-day adventure with my brother and VK has ended and so far I’ve already engrossed myself in a book, met up with NH, and attended a pretty funny comedy show.
I literally did not even pause - actually I did everything in my power not to pause. I speed walked from the terminal at Heathrow to the Underground and allowed my brain to be preoccupied with the advertisements I’ve already memorized from my dozens of other trips to the airports allllll the way until I hopped directly on to the waiting train (thank goodness!) and busted out my brand new book…which I read alllll the way until I hopped off the tube and into the company of NH and then into the Apollo Theatre and then back on the tube and into my book and then straight home and on to my computer and now….what??
What else can I possibly do to fill the huge silence that, as soon as I allow it to hit me, will inevitably make me feel sad and depressed for at least a little while?
See - this is what positivity does to you. It renders you unable to deal with the slightest bit of unhappiness. It’s like the Multiple Intelligence Theory that teacher’s use in schools. They figure out what a student is good at or responds well to - let’s say its art - and they use that as a tool to help students learn more effectively. But art was a replacement for another tool that perhaps that student might not like as much - like reading. What happens? That student thrives with art but eventually, instead of developing their learning holistically, ends up sucking at reading.
I am your sucky reader. Except that I am a champion at reading. I just suck at being able to tolerate negative emotions.
You would think that’s a good thing - I mean who wouldn’t want to be programmed to naturally avoid anything that makes them unhappy? But that’s the thing - it isn’t natural. Because in the process of me desperately trying to fill my head with other thoughts to avoid the sad feelings, I also refuse to give myself any time to dwell on the many awesome moments of the past week and a half. I convince myself that there is no point - I mean, it’s not like I’m going to forget how awesome this week was, I’ve already decided that it was awesome and catalogued it in my memory as such.
But despite my rationalization, I can’t kid myself. I want so badly to be able to reminisce over these moments in the silence of their immediate aftermath; there is a bittersweet pleasure in exploring the crevices of each scene - the expressions on everyone’s faces, the captions behind the pictures, that one comment that elicited ab-crunching laughter. Ahh but I can’t do it. I can’t actually stretch my legs and get comfortable in my memories because I know what is coming right after…
It is a little bit debilitating, I think, to be unable to allow myself to experience these feelings. It’s like the opposite of depression - which, like anything you get too much of, is not a good thing.
And, I find it interesting that I am just now realizing that perhaps one of my biggest fears is not death, or failure or the loss of my Macbook, but that actually, they are my own feelings - sadness, regret and guilt.
Hmm. Something to work on. (Good luck finding a self-help book. Can you imagine the titles? “How to Feel Sad Again” or “Embracing Negativity” or “Escaping the Valley of Light.” Bestseller lists, where you at?)
