It’s 1:17 a.m., the earliest hours of Oct. 10 and I have to be up for P.A. Reporting in less than seven hours. It’s useless to try sleeping now; I have this weird theory that if I can’t get at least seven and a half hours of sleep in a night, I can sleep for only three hours. Anything longer will leave me unable to leave my sheets.
I stare at my dark ceiling as music plays softly and I try to clear my head. There are too many things going on, which isn’t by any means abnormal.
And then “Mr. Brightside” by The Killers comes on. I groan, run a hand through my hair and neglect to change it. The song was one of my favorites in middle school.
It also speaks to every romantic feeling I’ve had in my time at New Paltz.
It’s now 1:25 a.m. and I have no problems wallowing in my emotional volatility for a little bit, or for three hours. I’m used to the latter.
I’ve always been more intuitive than any normal person would want to be. Maybe some people want to be more so, but it can be really awful. If you’re me, you’ve known the exact second when the feelings someone had for you ended.
The feelings erode over time, but there’s an exact moment when you know it’s over and there’s nothing you can do. You can’t help it if they like someone else more than you.
You can cling for dear life as much as you want, but there’s no stopping the person you like from having the feelings that they have. If they like someone else, that’s it. They may be insensitive about it and they may have betrayed every drop of trust you gave to them, but there’s no changing it.
And then it becomes a sport you’re a spectator in. They’ll try to be secretive about it, but it’s all blatantly obvious. A glance filled with warmth that lasts too long is the most freezing thing to the person who wasn’t meant to catch it.
It’s a little past 1:30 a.m. and the song is over. Then “Someday You Will Be Loved” by Death Cab For Cutie comes on.
The shade of it all, it couldn’t get any worse.
That song is one of the most beautiful I’ve ever heard, but I definitely have a certain amount of hate for it.
How noble you must feel if you’ve ever been that person. If you left someone, and the reason you gave them wasn’t the truth and the only thing you leave them is unsure reassurance that one day they’ll find something better.
You should just tell them the truth. Oh sure, your reason may be painful, but it’s never going to be as painful as a lie you told to try to ease their pain. Lies are so thin these days, and they only get more transparent as time goes by. You’ll never keep it for long.
I’ve never been in love.
I know what the feeling of your heart breaking is like. Being in love doesn’t require you to feel such pain. Some people with too much empathy (if there is such a thing, which I don’t think there is) experience heartbreak several times a week. Not being in love doesn’t mean you are unable to know the feeling of a bullet going through your chest and your heart exploding into glass-like shards in every direction.
I come back to reality feeling light as a feather and like a sinking anchor all at once. “Tin Man” by the Avett Brothers is playing now.
Sometimes I like to think about how much easier day-to-day life would be if you couldn’t feel anymore, and then I quickly decide that would actually be the most awful thing to be: emotionless.
Nothing feels better than knowing you’re moving on and that the pain you suffered is easing. Maybe that’s life’s greatest pleasure: knowing that moments, no matter how long or short, are fleeting. What you don’t want to drive you insane can’t once you realize that you’re not stuck and there is room to move forward.
It’s now 2 a.m. Maybe my theory is wrong and I’ll try getting some sleep.