Anhedonia.
2010. A new decade & a new year, yes? There's something bittersweet about this particular "holiday" that I have never really been able to place my finger on. For starters, surely I'm not alone in realizing that this night, just like many other nights, is a phenomenal excuse to drink ourselves (as a society) to excessive inebriation. Additionally, there's some weird guttural affliction I'm ailed with when the clock ticks away the last second of the former calendar year and the fireworks are lit and the glasses are clinked and the lips are kissed and the drug addicts use and then buy again and the alcoholics sip and then refill and babies are born and people get killed and cars get crashed and the homeless wrap themselves up tighter to fight the chill. The bittersweet feeling is that of happy sadness. Happiness for myself and the potential of the possibilities that are all well within my reach. Happiness for my girlfriend, happiness for my family, happiness for my band, happiness for my drums. Sadness for my older brother who counted down the clock while enveloped in a haze of cigarette smoke at some hole-in-the-wall dive bar where it's a rarity when the patron's have all of their teeth. Sadness for a particular guy I know (wouldn't call him a friend - for, he certainly wouldn't read that way on paper) who sat in his bedroom with porcelain glued to his lips and his eyes fixated on a computer screen. Sadness for a particular girl I used to know who I feel is filling up her empty spaces with empty people in empty places. But who am I to say all of this? For every inch of happiness I crawl towards, with my arms outstretched in a longing embrace to capture it, I am shoved backwards two feet by the inhibiting inertia of sadness I feel towards others; for others.
I felt this same bittersweet feeling when I turned 21 - just a little more than a week ago. I felt happiness for the mere fact that I actually lived to see this age, as melodramatic as that may sound. Theoretically, I should have been dead about 3-4 times, now. I felt happiness upon analyzing the juxtaposition of where I was in my life last year around my birthday (the 23rd) and Christmas as opposed to this year:
Last year's holiday/birthday season: Hardly keeping my head above the raging tide of water that is life. Lost my job that I had worked for more than a year due to a managerial dispute, my "girlfriend" was in a detox, then subsequently a rehab, for a particular addiction to a particular pharmaceutical -- essentially, I was just very lonely and very lost.
This year's holiday/birthday season: I have an okay job (read also: I have a job, period.) with menial hours that will coincide well with my impending, full-time school schedule. I am feeling confident about what I want to do with my life, vocationally speaking (though, this warm feeling of illuminated confidence flickers off and on like a dying light bulb: some days, I can see so clearly what I want; and other days, I feel completely lost in the dark) - I have a stable, healthy relationship with a beautiful girl who I have not tired of, and has remarkably not tired of me. Her spirit is pure and endearing, and her personal philosophies about drugs/alcohol/education are inspiring and influential in the best of ways. My situation with my family could not be better, and my little brother is practically my best friend.
So, what's the matter? I don't know, and anybody who says they do is a liar. Here comes another year of consistent inconsistencies and hopeless hopefulness and doubtful certainty.
"Maybe it's me who's this unstable
Always obsessed about the end
Why can't I let what happens happen?
And just enjoy the time I spend
Oh, how I wish it was so easy
But when there is no point to anything
It can get a bit confusing
Why is that I keep going?
Why is that we keep going?"
You just have to.
I felt this same bittersweet feeling when I turned 21 - just a little more than a week ago. I felt happiness for the mere fact that I actually lived to see this age, as melodramatic as that may sound. Theoretically, I should have been dead about 3-4 times, now. I felt happiness upon analyzing the juxtaposition of where I was in my life last year around my birthday (the 23rd) and Christmas as opposed to this year:
Last year's holiday/birthday season: Hardly keeping my head above the raging tide of water that is life. Lost my job that I had worked for more than a year due to a managerial dispute, my "girlfriend" was in a detox, then subsequently a rehab, for a particular addiction to a particular pharmaceutical -- essentially, I was just very lonely and very lost.
This year's holiday/birthday season: I have an okay job (read also: I have a job, period.) with menial hours that will coincide well with my impending, full-time school schedule. I am feeling confident about what I want to do with my life, vocationally speaking (though, this warm feeling of illuminated confidence flickers off and on like a dying light bulb: some days, I can see so clearly what I want; and other days, I feel completely lost in the dark) - I have a stable, healthy relationship with a beautiful girl who I have not tired of, and has remarkably not tired of me. Her spirit is pure and endearing, and her personal philosophies about drugs/alcohol/education are inspiring and influential in the best of ways. My situation with my family could not be better, and my little brother is practically my best friend.
So, what's the matter? I don't know, and anybody who says they do is a liar. Here comes another year of consistent inconsistencies and hopeless hopefulness and doubtful certainty.
"Maybe it's me who's this unstable
Always obsessed about the end
Why can't I let what happens happen?
And just enjoy the time I spend
Oh, how I wish it was so easy
But when there is no point to anything
It can get a bit confusing
Why is that I keep going?
Why is that we keep going?"
You just have to.