In Love with Everything but Loving Nothing
by Sopho Kharazi
© Sopho Kharazi
I have not felt childish in a very long time.
Despite my resting bitch face, I have always been childish. During my teens, I wore pink glasses and romanticized everything in the world; I was constantly in love. My extremely dense imagination was a source of happiness. I would walk with a smile through a boulevard in my city alone, collecting colorful leaves, observing the shapes of trees, listening to the waves of the sea, and afterward, writing a short story about my experience which I thought was emotionally enlightening. I remember, once I even wrote a 50-page story about one girl who emerged from the depths of the ocean and was excited to explore every detail of this filthy world – the story sucked though but I remember the joy of the writing process, I think I was the happiest during that time.
But do not get me wrong. I was not one of those children who was a walking positivity bubble. I have been very melancholic since the time I started having consciousness. Even my therapist once told me that I give out blue energy which I cannot argue with. However, I used to be in love with being melancholic and sad to the point that sometimes, I would forcefully infringe sadness upon myself and that romanticized sadness would make me happy – it was my true comfort zone.
This emotional state followed me until I turned 22, but obviously, the feelings were not as intense as they were in my teens. After that, I observed myself extinguishing in indifference and greyness. And, I would not say I am depressed – I think I just grew up and in that process, I failed to grasp that sparkle with me. I do not remember the last time I felt childish excitement and extreme emotions, except one time this June when I met again with the witch I fell in love with on Penisland. And it was the only case in five years. One day, I just stopped being excited about things I would get thrilled with in the past. I stopped having extreme emotions – which, I confess, I used to be feeling too frequently and it was exhausting, but I would love to experience them again once in a while. And the most heartbreaking thing for me is that I stopped enjoying sadness. Every time I am sad now, I feel annoyed about the fact that I am sad. I fail to immerse in the experience and let myself feel joy.
As I already mentioned, I lost a sparkle and painted myself grey. Even though for other people I am probably an interesting person because I can follow a deep conversation based on my knowledge and opinions, this is not the reason I think of myself as an interesting individual. It is my imagination, childish behavior, flashes of energy, perspectives, and excitement that would make me fascinating to me. Now, to me, I am boring. And I realized that I have become boring to me this summer.
I recently read The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera. If I read this book in my teens, I would have loved it. But when I read it now, I got so frustrated by the amount of romanticized language the writer was using to describe every corner of the wall. Why is it necessary, I thought to myself. And then I reflected on that reaction of mine and asked myself, when did I become so dull and cynical?