The Strange and Twisted and Deranged

Whenever I am sad,  I find that all I want is to steadfastly hold on to this feeling of sadness because I fear that I won't have it for too long. Sadness, unlike happiness, is a familiar emotion. An emotion that I crave. I like myself more when I am sad. So to satisfy this craving, I project sadness onto things that don't have anything to do with melancholy. Like how alone, even in the company of others, the stars seem. Sadness, for me, represents several things: the need to be alone; the packing, unpacking, shelving, reshelving, arranging and rearranging of dreams; the repairing of broken hopes that I never knew I still kept; and as unoriginal as it may sound, the motivation and inspiration to create something, anything. And so I hold on to sadness for however long it chooses to stay. But with the impermanent nature of emotions, it is hard to hold on to it. So in the absence of my own melancholy, I seek it in literature, in music and in films.

While I have spent a huge part of my life trying, with fervour, again and again, to chase happiness, I have never been certain that I have ever fully attained it. And so in the privacy of my own thoughts, in the dark recesses of my mind, several questions sit unanswered: how does happiness feel like? What does happy look like? To appease my inquiring mind, I've settled on the absence of misery. It's not sadness. And it's not quite happiness either. But every so often, I'll experience something resembling happiness. But I rarely enjoy this fleeting emotion. I merely pause to revel in this feeling, to try and understand it and before I put it into words, it rolls off to the edge and my reflexes are never fast enough to grasp it before it tumbles over the precipice and into the free fall. It's the sudden disappointment that quickly replaces that happiness, however fleeting,  that keeps me from falling over. These are the times that I am acutely aware of the ephemerality of life. Nothing lasts forever. Even happiness. Especially happiness.

The title of this post is from the song Crying Lightning by Arctic Monkeys.

I Wanna Live Like Common People Like You

There is a game that I love playing every night. It is a mindless game and that's partly the reason I haven't given it a name, yet. I always lose in this game. Which is sad because I invented it. The main rule of the game is that I try to stay as long as I can without wearing socks. That sounds like a silly game. But here is the thing: my hands and feet are usually very cold. The reason is because of poor circulation but I tell myself and whoever asks it's because I have a warm heart (whatever that means). I can't fall asleep until my feet are warm enough. And to speed up this warming process, I wear socks. Except that I don't like speeding up that process. There are just so many books that I need to read with so little time. And so I read until I can't and I am forced to wear the damn socks because I am too exhausted to stay awake.

The title of this post is from the song Common People by Pulp.

Old Age is Just Around the Bend

As I inch closer, ever so slowly, to the half century mark, am in awe of how little things add up to being something big, in the grand scheme of things. The sound of the ticking clock, the ticking being representative of the seconds that pass, a collection of seconds turn into minutes which turn into hours which accumulate into days then months then years. It's a whole cycle yet things change so subtly that I barely notice until a whole metamorphosis has taken place.

The concept of time has always been elusive to me, hard to grasp because every time I try, it slips through my fingers. And I mourn the hours that pass without being productive; the days that I lose seemingly busy but achieving nothing; the months that go by that I only realise because life demands that I pay bills monthly; the years that fly at the end of which I take notice because there is the pressure of looking back and seeing if I have achieved my expectations of the said year and making new resolutions. Some years are good, while others I spend trying so desperately to keep my hopes unbroken.

Time is fickle. My youth is fleeting. I am accumulating days and years at a very fast rate. And I realise that today is the oldest I have ever been and the youngest I will ever be.

The title of this post is from the song The Sound of Settling by Death Cab for Cutie.

Exile on Mainstream

My introduction to, or more precisely, my stumbling upon- because when it comes to music, I seem to stumble upon rather than being introduced to- Matchbox Twenty was by this album, Exile on Mainstream. This is how I remember it: it was in 2010 (3 years after this wonderful collection had come into existence), a couple of months after I was done with my high school career, a time when I had so much time with myself, a time filled with hope, too much hope that has with time turned to tentative hope (but that deserves a whole different post). So I was home listening to the radio, and it was during this mid morning show that was also a request show and a woman texted in to request Unwell. And this is what she said, "Please play for me Unwell by Matchbox Twenty because I am not feeling so well today." I knew this song, I had heard it being played numerous times before, but it was that day that I actually listened to the lyrics. And maybe I cried. And maybe I didn't. But I was moved by this song. And I wanted to know more about Matchbox Twenty. So I went ahead and got myself Exile on Mainstream, and for reasons I couldn't explain, I loved this album. But as it is with things that we obsess about (over), other songs, other albums from other artists and bands flirted shamelessly with me, and I am human, I fell into their charms and I stopped the obsession with Exile on Mainstream or maybe the obsession stopped.

Flash forward, five years later, I am finding myself listening to this album, on repeat. Only that now, I am five years older and wiser(?) I have changed, I have grown, my taste, surprisingly, has become both more and less defined. Taking a peek at my music collection, an observer might find it a little bit messy, a little bit all over the place; it's as if I start on something and I don't see it to completion, there is a lot of incompleteness in my life, and this, I realise, is manifest in the music I listen to.

It's therefore not a coincidence that just as I was listening to Exile on Mainstream after I finished high school, I am going back to it now that I am done with my undergraduate studies. But this time around, I understand why I love this album. This time around I know it's because of the meaning of this compilation and how I completely relate to every song. Or maybe it's because I now like to attach meanings to things, to dig deeper into my psyche and the reasons behind why I love certain things.

Right now, I find myself, or rather life has thrust me into the Mainstream, where I feel unprepared, unbalanced, everything seems strange and unfamiliar as if am in exile. Exile on Mainstream as a title to a whole collection couldn't be more apropos of my life right now. I am hovering in this point of transition, a place that I've been, a place that I keep returning to, a place that's kept me on edge: I am waiting for something only that I don't know what it is I am waiting for.

Matchbox Twenty- Exile on Mainstream

All This Feels Strange and Untrue

My primary school maths teacher taught us what I found to be key in solving all unknowns in the equations. That we start from the known going to the unknown. I didn't know I took that as a life lesson until I typed the sentence, 'l don't sleep much' as the opening to this post. The fact that I don't sleep much is a badly kept secret. Anyway, I slept early today,  just after midnight and I congratulated myself for going to sleep at a decent hour. It is in this state of semi-conscious self congratulatory speech giving that I drifted to a peaceful sleep and all of a sudden I was experiencing a turn of events that my conscious self figured as unreal but I was unable, and perhaps unwilling, to stop them. Not because this dream was pleasant. Quite the contrary, it was unpeaceful, quite a departure from the state I drifted to sleep in. And I observed this turn of events, as if on a screen that was being slid after each scene. And then slowly, I regained full consciousness but that semi conscious dream has left me with this weird feeling that I am trying to shake out, with little success.

The title of this post is from the song Open your Eyes by Snow Patrol.

Just don't ever make me Promises

Under the heading New and Noteworthy, my kindle has the book Bliss and the Art of Forever by Alison Kent and it has been under this heading for the past several weeks and it makes me wonder if the Amazon people don't have other books to advertise to me. I have never clicked the link to the book to see what the book is about, so maybe my distaste, based solely on the title, of the book could be premature. I might read it and find it very interesting. I don't believe in forevers. Especially blissful forevers. And this could be the reason why the presence of the book and the fact that Amazon has decided to put it there makes me resent them.

Now, you may think I am very cynical. I am not. I don't believe in forever. That doesn't mean I don't believe in the longevity of love. I do. I also believe in the uncertainty of tomorrows. This is what makes life worth living. Looking forward to a tomorrow in which you don't know what might happen. True, sometimes all we do is breath, sometimes we meet people we never knew existed, sometimes our tomorrow is just a replica of our today and yesterday. But in all these, there is always an element of surprise invisible to those who don't look closely. That is why I believe the concept of forever as a destination is a misguided one. The heart, with which we trust our love and decisions of our future love lives, is very fickle, it changes it's mind for reasons we might never understand- if you can explain the human heart, maybe we should be friends. I am usually very wary of people who promise each other forevers, and forever being nearly not long enough for them to be together.

Forever as a journey, though, is a concept I am willing to explore. Taking each day in stride, acknowledging that sometimes when we talk about our dreams for the future, what we are doing is not necessarily crafting a lifetime together, or trying to accommodate each other in the dreams we had before our paths crossed.  What we are doing may be preparing ourselves for our eventual parting. But that doesn't have to mean that we shouldn't enjoy the present. The present that has brought us together and which prepares us for the future that may or may not include each other. So when I say don't ever make me promises, it doesn't mean that I don't want a future with you. What it means is that I am enjoying you today, with the hope that I will still enjoy you tomorrow, but I am taking each day as it comes.

The title of this post is from the song Promises Promises by Incubus.

Get into My Ear: Mess is Mine by Vance Joy

https://youtu.be/1C816p-KTNk

Ever since I heard Vance Joy's Mess is Mine playing on the radio, I knew it was a special song, but I couldn't point out what made this song particularly special. Until last night. I was trying to clear the mess that had piled up, dirty clothes, folding up the clean laundry, taking the books from my bed and floor when this song came on the radio. I had to stop for the entire time the song played and was awed by the absolute perfection of this song.

I always tell myself that the reason I am single, and the reason my past relationships haven't worked is because I haven't met someone who when I invite them to my house, and attempt an embarrassed laugh telling them sorry for the mess just to seem as a good hostess (yet in real sense I am not sorry, I am never sorry for the state of my room, whether it is neat or the opposite of neat) they will look at me so lovingly and tell me that my mess is theirs. I think that is what true romance is about- claiming my mess as yours.

Favourite Lyrics

Do you like walking in the rain?
When you think of love, do you think of pain?
You can tell me what you see
I will choose what I believe

Bring me to your house
And tell me, "Sorry for the mess"
Hey, I don't mind
You're talking in your sleep
All the time
Well, you still make sense to me
Your mess is mine

Hold on, darling
This body is yours,
This body is yours and mine
Hold on, my darling
This mess was yours,
Now your mess is mine
Your mess is mine