Realizing the Senses

This was probably one of the most honest conversations I've ever had about something I once believed was possible and had been living.

It's strange.. realizing you lied to yourself, that you blinded yourself with the very dreams and thoughts that are "defined to be you," only to realize that it laid still, a curtain between you and the very sounds and smells and people around you. To open your eyes, your ears, to feel every breathe of the people around you on your skin is unbelievable - almost like a dream itself.

These were my thoughts: [1][2][3]
This is the conversation.

friend: eh its going good
hate waking up early but whatever its money
why was ur day weird

me: i like waking up early. i feel like i haven’t wasted the day that way.
i don’t know. i drove six hours from idaho to alberta and i was with two of my best friends all week and i just felt.. weird. i don’t know. and i felt like hating the weather for being too warm, and i hated the sun for shining and the children for laughing.
i went to walmart to pick up string, and usually i hear nothing when i’m shopping, but i was like i heard everything. even now i can remember almost every detail, and that’s so weird for me. and it hurt my head when this child in the express line screamed becuase he was mad, and it hurt my head to know that my head hurt, and it hurt to smile at the mother when i knew her child was pissing me off
when i usually don’t mind kids..
and today i just felt weird. and i felt like i needed to get words off of my tongue that i didn’t know were there, and so today it pissed me off that i wasn’t light weight even though i ate nothing today and felt nothing after half a bottle of wine but i wrote and wrote and wrote and i hate what i wrote but i can’t help but love it and it’s just weird becuase i want to talk but.. it’s like i’ve
run out of what to say.
do you babysit all day?

friend: so youve been feeling really pesstimisitic lately?
or do you just feel really stuck
and like 7:30 till 5:30

katelynn: that’s a really long day. do you like the kids?
i can’t even describe it as pessimistic or being stuck. it was like i felt.. nothing, but i felt everything.

friend: how you worded that entire paragraph sounded so sick aha

me: LOL.
there was no emotion, and it was just..
there,
ugh. this is bugging me that i can’t word it.
it was like..
being there with no thoughts, no emotions, just an acknowledgement of breath, of heat..
like Mersault in “The Stranger” by Albert Camus.

friend: ohhhh okay i get what youre getting at now
thats really odd
ive never felt that way before

katelynn: i used to think i did
until today
it’s like all of a sudden, all of these philosophies i’ve been trying to become, suddenly became.

friend: is the feeling youre describing a bad one or a good one?

me: it’s not bad and it’s not good.
it just.. is.
it’s like… when you go shopping and you stare at the people you’re walking by in the corridor of the mall or the store you’re in. you look, you acknowledge, and you may like their shirt, their hair, their makeup, you may think the boy is cute and take a second look and that’s all. at least for me, there’s no emotion, no sudden urge to do something or think of anything. you just are. you’re
going somewhere and you’re just observing.
and it was like i had no where to go.
no where i had been,
and all i was was in that moment

friend: OH okay! i understand more now

me: with too bright of lights and a weird store with a child screaming and a headache and too baggy PJ pants and a period i was wondering if it was all right and chocolate i wanted to eat..
there was no feeling.. it was just.. that,
friend: you were feeling like that the whole day?
me: no.. i don’t remember the rest of the day.. i drove for six hours with my red haired friend in the front seat and my chinese friend in the back and i can’t remember anything.
all i remember was being in that store and feeling weird from then on out,
and maybe feeling slightly depressed going in.
but it wasn’t like a depressed feeling, just…
emptiness almost..

friend: yeah i understand
do you still feel the emptiness?

me: no.. more like.. nothingness as i contemplate it all..
and it’s weird, becuase what i write ususally reflects what i was feeling, but this time it doesn’t at all.
it’s completely random, just words that fit together at that moment.
it’s just.. weird.

friend: do you mean what youre trying to describe to me doesnt reflect what youre feeling or what you were writing before doesnt?

me: both. my writing doesn’t reflect anything i’ve thought of or feel connected to, and what i’m describing doesn’t descibe my feelings, but just what i remember..

friend: idk if this is how you feel at all but what i got from that is you’re just kinda there
you dont really have a purpose
you’re just riding the wave
is that how you feel?
or was it totally off

me: i’d say it was pretty acurate..

friend: that feeling would make me kinda depressed

me: really? why?

friend: but you dont feel depressed?
because idk
id just feel blah
like everythings constantly just letting me down
do you feel that way at all? or is it just no emotions

me: it’s no emotions. it’s just completely being in the moment, observing and having nothing to be, nothing to live up to; just observing in the world in that moment.
i find it kind of beautiful.

friend: oh so you feel carefree?

me: not really..
god this is hard.

friend: LOL yes it is aha

me: becuase it’s like you’re every word you can be, but you’re nothing.
it’s like..

friend: or maybe im just trying too hard to pinpoint an emotion with what youre feeling
but you dont feel any emotion

me: that might be it.

friend: probably

me: becuase i can’t find a word or emotion or anything to describe it.. just.. words that say what it was.
becuase there truly was no emotions.
it was just.. i was there observing everything in that moment.
i went to walmart to pick up string to make those friendship bracelets becuase i left my string in idaho.

friend: why were you in idaho?

me: and while i was there, i phoned my parents to tell them that i had gotten to calgary safe. i remember a lot of the conversation (this was where i started to just be) and i remember when I said “Hello” to my dad, the man to my right turned to look at me..
i go camping there every year.
my uncle has been going down for 30 years,
so it’s more of a social gathering place.
our whole family kind of overtakes this small campground, and our family and the campground manager’s family gets together and it’s like a big party all summer with sun and water and food and drinks and laughs… it’s a lot of fun.
so i was down with my two friends for the fourth of july. we came back today.

friend: oh i see, it definitley does sound like a lot of fun
is it nice feeling how you felt?
*was it nice

me: it depends. you’re still trying to pinpoint an emotion, a feeling with it. but it really was no emotions. looking back, i didn’t feel anything as i got the string, curiosity as i followed the man down the corridor, past the electronics and wondered who he was looking for and why he had such a strange walk,
nothing as i walked behind the girl after switching sides of the isle, brifly windering if she thought anything of me following her, and annoyance at how slow the express isle was taking and how the young girl at the cashiere should have gone faster, and how the kid in front was a spoiled brat even though i’m sure he was a normal little boy..
nothing as i looked the man in the eyes outside of walmart who stood, carrying the three children in the stroller (maybe there was more), and nothing as i stopped eye contact and continued on my way. wonderment as i wondered how six cars could get crossed in paths in a twenty meter diameter of space in a full parking lot and a mental note to not come that way. regret when i went that way, and
nothing as i watched the woman and child walking infronnt of my car behind two teenage girls before they moved to the right and i passed them..
it was just beautiful, being there, remembering,
seeing
and not just being nothing and remembering nothing and being so lost in my head that i could not acknowledge the world around me.
and for that one moment, i can wonder if i will be remembered by any of them, if they would give me a second thought, if i made a difference.

friend: this world is so big its so amazing to think about all the lives and different things people are doing at the same time
and its odd to think how many people we encounter in our life but never get to know or see again

me: exactly. and i just think it’s beautiful that i can remember some of them, that i acknowledged them.
you see, i have lived in my head for so long, to live in that moment and remember so many details was such an eyeopener, that even though i cannot describe it with any more emotions regarding the whole moment, i can’t help but be proud of that moment and see it as something beautiful amongst the lack of solid emotion or evidence of it happening.