a weird word
(TW: existential crisis and what it may come with)
Sometimes, how I feel about my existence feels like a weird word. You know… those times you look at a word? Any regular word. Like the word “make” or “hello.” You’ve probably used this word your whole life without any second thought. And when you’re good with words, it is your kin or a habit; it turns into a breath of air on paper. You never doubted you could spell it correctly or knew what it meant. But then… At some point, you take a look at the word. You look over and over again. It's like you’re jogging repeatedly in circles around that word, more so than you do when you run, say, 10k on the same small circular path. Suddenly, the word looks extremely foreign. Nope. You’ve never seen it before. You don’t believe it exists.
This is how I feel about my presence in this world at times. Am I quite here? Am I on a detour, or something? Did someone wake me up from a sleeping pod? It makes sense for a while. Days go by on autopilot, regardless of the routine or spontaneity it brings, and you resume life. But then, at times, the days feel like nothing except a weird word. You can’t quite fathom that, at present, the gravity tugging at your skin or the draft passing through your nostrils into your lungs is real. You can feel the scientific and logical proof. You can’t deny it; your life has a paper trail. You exist. So why suddenly are you in a labyrinth, aching to find Ariadne’s thread? Why do you feel like you woke up with amnesia? You know you have passions, somewhere. You just can’t quite find it right now, like it’s tucked in the crevices of the crappiest, messiest stockroom, collecting dust, maybe being crowded by Cornish Pixies.
Would I call this an existential crisis? Maybe, at times. There may be a sense of meaningless when you feel trapped in a weird word, even despair. You begin to question, do you ruin every single step on earth that you touch? Is the world a worse place because you’re in it? Did all that you ever achieved mean something? Your memories, were they real?
Apologies if that was a little heavy. Not my intention — I am doing my best to be blatantly self-aware right now, but it can be quite damning to get stuck in this mental state of weird wordedness. Instead of existential crisis, I may call it existential vertigo, x-vertigo for short. You’re haunted by a disorienting ballet, a shaky waltz with the universe. You’re pulled in every direction with nothing offering you a firm grasp. If you at any given second forget you exist, you may fall into a black hole, never to be seen again.
Before getting lost in this maelstrom of paralysis, you must stop dancing with the weird word. Really, stop looking at it. Sometimes the weirdness comes from examining it a little too closely a little too long. So, take a step away. Close your eyes, sing a distracting song, and let your body wait for the daylight. Or, like Harry ejecting Voldemort or Frodo on the brink of succumbing to the Ring’s power, find the tiniest bit of a Patronus and hold onto that until you can move again. And perhaps, little by little, the word gets a little less weird. Or maybe you may learn to thrive with its weirdness. Like any discomforting challenge or heartbreak you’ve gone through, this too shall pass.
