2010-05-31
combustible
This (my world, the world) is all ending. I am graduating. I am leaving everything I've established here behind. I am not going to see these friends again for a very long time. I am moving to somewhere I've never been. I am going to be a real adult, with a college degree. I am starting over.
I am combustible.
Things are setting me off, making me feel this wrenching sadness inside. I feel that sadness is the right word for it, because that's what it feels like, a despair, an emptiness, the feeling that you've lost something, or that you once had something-- but the sadness isn't bad; it just, is. It is an emotion, with no valence either way. Just a feeling, taking up my energy, draining me, making me wince with the (not-negative) feel of it, that almost-pain, that sensation that definitely isn't pleasant. But it isn't all bad either. It means I am alive. Confused, strained, yearning, distracted from more immediate tasks at hand, a bit dramatic, even weeping--- but not dead or apathetic. This sadness, it means: I am here, and I care.
This all happened, it happened to me, and because of me, in my life, and I FEEL something about it. I don't know what it is I feel. I know the feeling is isolating (as sadness can often be), and challenging. It forces me to confront the fact that I've faced lots of frustration and disappointment, that I've had ideals and expectations that didn't pan out, that sometimes I feel like things are supposed to be profound but then the moments don't actually feel that meaningful- in fact they can feel quite underwhelming. And that even though I felt all that, I also still valued it all. Even though those things sound negative, they were mine, and my heart is taking the time and energy to respond to them, so they MEANT something. To me.
And then there is the strain that preempts the losses I will incur; this I am proud of, to feel this. I strive to appreciate things while I still have them insofar as I can (and therefore not take them for granted and regret it once I no longer do have them), and the loss I feel in this way means that I am at least somewhat succeeding at this realizing how good I have it, how lucky I am, how much things matter to me, WHILE I still have them, before I've even lost them yet. Carleton, all these people, all of it. I can pride myself on this, but it's also unproductive, because it's distracting and also superfluous to feel loss for something that you still technically have, before you lose it.
I don't know what to do. Bunker down, wait it out. Feel these emotions, don't repress or deny them, but also don't indulge and perpetuate them. Don't ignore it, acknowledge it, but don't encourage it. I don't know. They are all such fine lines.
I've always relished verges- they are such powerful moments. But this one, I just feel alone, and sad. Those things kind of overpower the excitement, at least for now.
Still the final exams, still the first big move eastward, still the ceremony, then the goodbyes. I wonder what will set me off next.
leesah-likes at 11:37 p.m.