Wednesday, January 09, 2008

a post on emptiness

I don't know if I can explain how empty I feel right now. Maybe all you would have to do is look at the posts from last year--so much emptiness. It's that moment at the end of a story when it's not a happy ending, not a sad ending, when life just keeps going and you're left feeling unsatisfied and unhinged. Which is what life is. I keep looking for the "The End" sign for this chapter of my life, but there isn't a sign. There is this emptiness. Not happy, not sad. Empty. No roommate, no job, no friends I see every day, no one who needs me. But there is my thesis, my sister's family, my friends who are still in contact. I feel as if I'm waiting to be filled up. This isn't a religious question so much as a life question, that "So what?" Hickman is so fond of writing on my thesis chapters. What has all this meant? What does all this mean? Am I going to find out? So much happened last year, right down to the final coutdown with K and me holding our henna tattoos away from our sides so they wouldn't smear while the rest of the world ran into each other. So much. Is it right for me to feel empty?

5 comments:

mlh said...

This is, perhaps, on of the secrets of the universe.


There is no happy ending. There is no sad ending. And both of these are corollaries of the strange, universal truth that there is no ending. It's hard for those of us who are used to experiencing things between the two covers of a book, but it wasn't supposed to work out in an arch, well-composed and symmetrical. It doesn't end. It's just this. And this is what it is. Sometimes it feels pretty meaningless. Sometimes it feels pretty empty. But then, people say that about eternity.

Anna B said...

i think empty feelings come in between life's chapters--which is where we go when we've applied to grad schools and are waiting to hear back. i hate that place. the previous chapter will feel finished and happy finished when the new one starts. that's what i think. and i need you. maybe i should just move in. i like that bed. if i were home i would make you go with me to get lunch and then to go see 27 dresses. i may just go by myself because i don't really want to see it with anyone else!

Kjerstin Evans Ballard said...

My solution to empty: throw a party. That is to say, I don't think that full is always better if it's just for the sake of being full, or busy or whatever. Also, I think that the search for filling things is most of the journey...?

Kjerstin Evans Ballard said...

And I love you and we love you and are just next door. :)

Ginsberg said...

e.g., it's January. (Or rather, it was January when you wrote this. And why didn't I read it then? I dunno, maybe because I was feeling empty and somehow "not up to" reading my friends' blogs on account of it being January.) God made January so that for one month out of the year, the whole word would know how depressed people feel about six or more months out of the year. Hope February is more filling.

 

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