This is a basket to catch the feelings.
Before they fly off into the wind and become memories. The rush and clarity I have in conversations disappear when I drop the phone and all that is left is the joy. It's like the various levels of being drunk. The intoxication that you dance-off and lose to sweat can never be compared to the tipsiness that lingers as you make your way home but its just enough to remember what it felt like.
Conversations inspire feelings, ideas and stories and in those moments, I know the exact thoughts to write but as I make the short trip to my drafts ( with an extended Twitter break sometimes) I lose it all and all I remember are just bits of the many thoughts that were a constant stream before. Writing becomes mechanical, I fret over which words convey the most meaning and in the end, I click delete.
Sometimes I turn to YouTube Music hoping that somewhere in between Tems and Adekunle Gold, I will find the redemption my soul needs to recreate the bubble of emotions I need to write. I am off the high and grasping for straws but this time I am accepting failure. There will be no dizzying use of words, no mastery of speech and no painting of mental images. It's like the peace that comes when you are taking a leak for the fifth time after a night of partying. In the eerie silence with only your urine drawing patterns around ceramic, you remember the foolishness of your decisions and make peace with it, shaking your member in surrender to fate.
The rush, the feelings, the high is gone but I am still here because I can feel just one thing — Joy. It is light, unexplainable, unwarranted and unsolicited but it is there. Unlike all the other feelings, it doesn’t need a memory to draw strength from, no pictures or texts to rekindle it, it just stays.
And the best part is that it triggers the strangest emotions like scrolling through your contact list and sending weird voice notes checking up on people or helping you power through a tough deadline.
You have come this far looking for a story, a lesson or some pain to share but I have none to give today. Just joy to share. I hope that this unexplainable lightness envelops you over and over again. Even when it disappears, I hope that the thought of what you had and what will be is enough to keep you going.
Love always,
S
