It came to me today that I have no idea how to be miserable. Most of the time, I feel just fine. When good things happen I am happy. When sad things happen I am sad. And the fact that I have loved and lost never seems to register; whatever inner tragedy I have suffered crashes futile against the rocks. I see no difference between my life with and my life without.
Except that, at night, I am filled with a frantic energy that might be joy or rage or despair but not something in between--because this feeling is the opposite of "in between." Sometimes I sprint until my breath refuses to come; sometimes I punch the back of my couch until my knuckles open and bleed; sometimes blare heavy metal and lay on my bed in the dark and feel the emotion swell like angry shores in a rising tide.
Except that, in the morning, I turn over and sleep again, having forgotten the reason I woke up in the first place. My dreams are beyond reach, but perhaps they hold the answer.
Except that, whenever I am asked how I am, some rogue whim ambushes my casual response and replaces it with a cosmic melancholy that, even when shaken, clings like damp clothing on a cool autumn day.
Until today, I thought perhaps I had escaped without a scratch. How curious to realize that I live deep within the chasm of my own wound. When it heals, where will I live, I wonder? Anywhere, I suppose, where she has not left a scar.