Things Aren't The Same and I'm Sad
I can't shake a feeling I've had since before Easter.
Sometimes I can almost forget it. But like my tinnitus, it's always there when I stop and think about it.
It feels like a chapter of my life may be ending. And I feel...mournful. Sad.
For over a year, streaming on Twitch – playing music from my collection – was all I wanted to do. It was the most fun I've had in many years, and brought back a long-lost love of collecting music.
I don't look forward to it anymore. It feels like a chore. Each time I stream, I enjoy it a little less, a nagging question in the back of my mind: should I just stop now?
I still love music. But I look at my collection – a hodgepodge of vinyl and plastic and magnetic tape sitting still and silent on IKEA Kallax shelves. Inanimate. Waiting.
Physical copies of some of the music I adore most in this world. A physical manifestation of twenty months of dedicated collecting.
And now I wonder why I've done it. I wonder if I want to keep doing it.
Other things are more important. I've always know it, but I was reminded of it when I took a break from Twitch for Lent. And I'm fighting myself. Because I don't want things to be different.
What would I do instead? I'm still trying to figure that out. But I don't have to keep doing something I don't want to do anymore – that I feel I shouldn't do – just because I don't know what to replace it with.
This much I do know. Slipping back into some of the things I gave up for Lent has caused me to lose spiritual ground. I'm losing perspective. I'm losing the will to read and write and contemplate and commune with God. I'm slipping back into a technological coma. And I feel it.
I thought the drastic changes I made – the self-imposed restrictions I put in place – would prevent this. It's not working.
I cannot allow the pendulum to swing back. Not this time.
It's possible I'm weighed down with other things. There's a lot of worry in my personal life now. Family stuff. And I'm feeling helpless as I witness my country, my home, tear itself apart. Maybe those concerns are casting a dark cloud over everything, including my beloved hobbies.
Or maybe Lent worked. Maybe I was able to spiritually reset and re-calibrate. Maybe I did get just the smallest bit closer to where I want to be in the grand scheme of life and eternity and I just can't go back now. Maybe I'm just not the same. And maybe I don't want to be the same.
Should that make me sad? Whether or not it should, it's how I feel right now. And I'm sharing how I feel because, as Fred Rogers said:
Anything that’s human is mentionable, and anything that is mentionable can be more manageable. When we can talk about our feelings, they become less overwhelming, less upsetting, and less scary. The people we trust with that important talk can help us know that we are not alone.