Melancholy. Sadness. Grief.
I think, “I don’t know why I feel like this.”
I do know why I feel like this. I have always been like this.
Emotional is what I am. I feel. It’s almost all I do. My day is made up of feelings.
My favorite method of remembering things is by recalling emotions. In the morning, I was happy—that’s when I got ready. In the late morning, I was sad and tired from class. Later, I was hungry—it was right after I had finished my morning class. In the afternoon, I was sad again—that’s when I was in my three-hour-long class, desperately wanting to go home. There was a moment when I felt even sadder—depressed, both physically and mentally exhausted—that was when I missed my train and had to wait in the cold at the station for the next one. When a memory is emotionally charged, I find it easier to recall later, like a built-in data catalog in my brain.
Numb moments tend to blur in my memory. I don’t remember them because there are no emotions I can link back to. Blurry—like I’m taking a break from the space and time constraints one must obey. Like I’m finally breathing flavorless air for the first time in a while.
Usually, I throw myself back into feeling something, anything: It’s 3 p.m., I want to go home and take a nap. I’m tired. I’m sad that I can’t. I’m cold.
Numb moments are scary and unfamiliar. They’re not me. I’ve always felt something—I’m a feeler, for God’s sake. It’s what I do.
Sometimes, I’m not sure how to describe the way I’ve lived life.
How can I put feelings into words? “Sensitive” is not only inaccurate but untrue. I’m not sensitive in the sense that I don’t allow myself to be affected by any and all emotions thrown at me. I block out emotions that aren’t mine, those forced upon me—whether positive or negative. I choose what I allow myself to feel. It’s the way I've survived.
However, when I do let myself feel, I can’t help it. In that way, I am much more lenient toward fictional people than real ones. I am quite the cinephile. I’ve always loved movies and have had many movie marathons with my family—it’s been a sort of tradition (and perhaps a a way to come together and feel together).
Movies have made me feel like no person has. I’ve bawled my eyes out for a grieving father on screen but never shed a tear for events that directly affected me or for suffering I witnessed firsthand. These are the instances where I don’t allow myself to feel. I’m not entirely numb, but in critical situations, I have found it much more important to do anything but that. To think, to help, to find solutions, to comfort, to de-escalate, to save myself and/or others. If I fall, everything falls. That’s how I see it.
But when I watch a movie, I let myself feel openly. I’m more forgiving toward myself if I cry (though I do have to time it so it falls on a sad scene hahah), if I get sad and depressed for the rest of the night. In those situations, it’s okay for people to see me break—everybody cries during sad movies. That normality, that expectedness, helps.
Whenever I feel that heaviness in my heart, that melancholy, it lasts so long that it can take days for me to find myself again. To pull myself free from the lashes of grief. In these moments, I grieve for every time I wasn’t allowed to.
Somehow, movies have become synonymous with moments of sadness. And almost every time I want to watch one, I find that I’m looking for a space to feel my emotions rather than just seeking mundane entertainment.
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(epilogue generated by AI)
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