Melancholy at the Table

One thing I've learned in this life of mine is that I can't expect to be happy, or even content, all the time. Today is one of those days.

Today was rainy and cloudy after a beautiful day yesterday. My throat is acting up, probably gonna get it checked out soon if it doesn't go away within the next week or so. Then my generally chipper teacher snapped at the students, a student who is well behaved usually acted up, and the mood at school and generally is just sort of meh. I'm sure in the back of everyone's mind is the fight against the inevitable: winter on the Tsush.

Winter is such a hard time here. Not only are your bones cold, you don't want to leave your house that is colder than outside for fear of death. The island becomes a land of miserable zombies, it's so fascinating (and depressing) how dramatic the change that winter brings about here. But winter will be a whole other post I'm sure

How I've been feeling lately: sort of stagnant, maybe the way a mosquito pupa feels before it can fly and is relegated to the stagnant water it depends on. My mood hasn't been very up or chipper for quite some time, trying to not think about winter and then thinking about it sure does not help. Not to mention that my throat feels all weird because I don't use my voice much on a daily basis. You would think I would, but I don't. I'm making the effort though now, to hum a tune in between classes, to sing out loud at home, to talk a lot when I do get the chance, and to move those vocal cords so they don't atrophy ha ha.

A good life lesson that comes out of this: sometimes life can just feel shitty, and that's quite alright. If this starts to become a pattern, then you need to recognize it, not avoid it. That's how I feel when I reach slumps in life, when the water feels stagnant and no matter how much I swim it still feels stale and dirty.

I think about my Dad sometimes when I get like this. How he would just quit, leave jobs back and forth without explanation. Would just say, nope, it's too much, would drown himself in alcohol, and then worry about it later. It wasn't so much that he was weak or even wanted to be like that, it's just what felt like the acceptable option in his mind when he made those kinds of decisions. I understand where he came from sometimes, although it's only been until a few years ago that I realized I was repeating the same alcohol patterns as him, and thus I am very conscious of my alcohol consumption and no longer drink to wash the pain away.

Alcohol was a huge deal for me growing up. It was always a part of my life. I knew it was "bad" and so I never drank when I was really young. It took me a long time to come to terms with the fact that alcohol can actually be quite fun, can be a "good" thing to destress and help folks bond, and isn't devil juice per se.

But now I'm dealing with a deeper issue. Now I'm dealing with the why my Dad used to drink to obliterate his thoughts. For all the same reasons I used to.

The world doesn't exactly revolve or know how to handle people like my father. He is loud, extremely funny, his voice and laughter carries, and he will make anyone in the room laugh and knows instantly how to change the mood from a boring one to that of a party mood. He's the kind of guy that will give you the shirt off his back, and is kind without really thinking about it. On the other hand however, growing up for me, he was like Jeckyl and Hyde. In front of his drinking buddies he was the life, without them he was miserable, tortured, and did not know how to express his sadness and anger, which usually meant he took it out on young me.

My Dad is a very intelligent person. He's the kind of person who can calculate to the cent how much he spent within the last month without receipts. He remembers dates, times, and anything related to numbers and patterns. That's where I get a lot of my math skills from. Hearing him calculate things out loud talking to himself figuring out if he had enough money left for this that or the other (or booze) was much of the dictation I heard from my Dad.

These smarts come at a very high social cost though. It makes him very awkward socially. Though he can pick up on the social cues, he doesn't care what people think about him and will say what he feels anyway. Another thing I get from my parents. But what many folks don't realize about people like us is that sometimes the misery and desire to want to connect to someone who understands us is overwhelming. So much so that it can drive us to much anger, lots of alcohol, or just putting ourselves in shitty situations in general. When we have something to say or feel like we're being abused or targeted, we don't ever keep quiet, that's something both my Mom and Dad do, they will tell you exactly what they are feeling towards you and will let you know why, no sugar coating necessary. But then after that, the pain would not go away, and hence my Dad would drink (and so would I). My Dad is totally different now though, has quit the sauce and is really cool now. It's nice to have a Dad who changed his ways and it helps us both learn from each other on how to handle our very vibrant emotions in a more constructive manner than plowing ourselves with alcohol.

So what about this sadness I was talking about? Well, it means right now I'm slowly reaching one of those slump moments where I'm questioning my life and job and next steps. Sometimes all but one ounce of my being tells me to just go, get out of here, fuck it all, find something else to to do and worry about it later. I want so bad to scream until I cry until I laugh again. Then there's another part of me who tells me it'll be alright, my Mom's voice in my mind telling me not to worry so damn much, to stick it out because I'll figure it out because I always have. Then there's a quick pessimistic voice that says no I won't, it's over, and this voice makes me laugh a lot, because it is so damn sarcastic, so exaggerating, and witty, it's my own voice.

I can't expect to not be in slumps sometimes in life. To be honest, I value these hard times, I give the emotions their space, I give my pessimism its due, and then I move on to the next emotions. But recently, it seems that I have a surplus of pessimism, of irritation, of general ennui about my job. Hence the patterns I don't want to colonize me encroach little by little. It's a good thing I'm leaving this year too, even if I don't know where I'm going next, simply going is decision enough for the time being. There's a reason my Dad likes to call himself the wanderer. There's a reason my Mom loves to travel and have a job where the schedule changes daily.

Whether I like it or not, the urges to explore and the curiosity of my parents runs in my blood. I've found many of my own outlets to express myself, and just like my parents, I am one of a kind. They're not knowing for settling, and probably never will be. I've come to terms with that within myself. And so a few days of doing nothing and being bored takes on a bit more extra significance and anguish than most folks. If I don't feel useful and not doing things I believe in, I can quickly fall into the same sorts of emotional stagnancy that I saw my father fall into growing up (and my Mom to some extent). So I'm very careful with my emotions, they are like beautiful works of glass. Made from some of the strongest material in the world, but so very fragile at the same time. I'm not going to pretend like I'm slightly optimistic about the doom of winter that looms right in front of all of us here, and I'm not gonna try to be happy when I'm not. It's one of the things I really abhor about Japanese work life, there's no outlet for anger, for frustration, or for sadness, you're just expected to take it in yourself and make it magically go away. I don't do it though, I'm more vocal about being miserable if asked. Did I mention my parents and I are terrible liars, especially if our emotions are involved (which they ALWAYS are)?

So I'm cognizant of all this. As the sadness I feel sort of makes itself comfortable as the winter approaches. That's also why it'll be my last year and why I'm going to Hawaii in February as well as using up all my vacation days left to not have to go to work as much as possible. I know my melancholy well, I spend a ton of time thinking about what I'm going through internally and I always know my thoughts and where they might be coming from. This is what makes me, and I respect it. So I welcome the sadness, pull up a chair for it and prepare for a nice little chat with it. I've learned to not run from it, to let tears and frustration out when they want to come out, and to let all emotions flow through your body and learn from them. I do what a lot of people wait to do until their death beds: I have internal dialogues with all my processes.

If I am to live, I must live with all that I am. That includes the discomfort and sadness that comes occasionally, especially when the weather sucks and I get sick. For me, it's not about "pulling" through it and glorifying the idea that you "beat" your sadness, it's about opening up that internal self dialogue, letting the emotions speak to you, and then making decisions based on what you have learned and what you feel is right for you. You make lots and lots of mistakes, you may even get driven to the overconsumption of the sauce more times than you'd like, you may lose your fucking marbles a few times, see the darkest parts of yourself that nothing could prepare you to deal with. But you will learn how to live with yourself. You will be able to look at yourself in the mirror and admire the fact that you are still breathing. Life is not a struggle, it is a process, and I for one want to be cognizant and aware of that process as it happens. I want to learn from what my body can teach me as it responds to everything and everything flows through it. Despite the hard times and stagnant times once in a while, it's nice to know I'm still breathing. So I welcome this melancholy, this sadness in my heart. I wonder what it has to say, and I'm gonna listen to it. Then I'll act, and I'll have learned something valuable. It's time to sleep soon. To go into my parallel dream life, my other life that is just as fascinating as the world I live in when I'm awake, they are after all one in the same. Before I do that, gonna listen to some sad songs, sing to my melancholy and be proud that I am willing and able to give it its dues.