Without Fanfare

I cannot believe how much sadness the soul can hold. In this modern world of skydiving and movie screens, the Modern People of sights unseen, I am aware of a depression unique. It is of the modern boys and gals who drive their cars down paved roads in first worlds and dream along to their favorite tunes of the possible worlds beyond their reach. Worlds that exist, it does seem, primarily, if not solely, on the other side of bigger paychecks--bigger than their student loan debt accounts and credit cards that were meant only for emergencies, and car payments like that somehow makes them grownups.

I always thought being eighteen and beyond meant so much joy in ones freedom. I was convinced the grownups in my life were all Crazy for not being outrageously spontaneous and wild and full-of-wonder with every sky-opening of the morn that marks a brand new day un-lived by a single soul before. Now I think I see that they were just grown up kids with murky dreams that turned imperceptibly from goals and plans to ideas. To thoughts. To daydreams in their cars on their commute back home, to the life that isn't enough, never enough.

I was never supposed to be that girl. I was the Convinced One, the Determination Girl. I was the black sheep of the family that was going to change everything (isn't everyone?). Maybe I already have been that person. Some of the truth of the blackness and sheepishness of my life is the very root to the sadness which leaves me in awe, bitterly, weakly. Just the sight of a name, or hearing a recording of someone's voice, from years past, when things were still painful--but in a hopeful, life is only going to get better from here, kinda way--leaves me Hollow. I can't believe how horribly empty I can feel while the richness of my life is so Real. I cannot say that I lack friends, though my heart becomes dreadfully heavy, at the least, frequently.

I decided tonight on my drive home in the randomly-70-degree March evening air, windows down and rain drizzles splatting on my car and arm-out-the-window, that I would make film one day. I get images in my head all the time--my significant other and I talked about this on one of our first dates, the kinds of films we want to make. Gritty, pointed, without fanfare. I was listening to this good song, and I decided I wanted to use it as an opening to a film that I will make that will be a "silent film" that will consist only of music to tell the story. A glimpse into a story already begun, and a tale that will end too soon to get any satisfying answers. A lot like life.

I decided friendships are much like movie trailers. A dramatic glimpse into a world so absurdly unlike your own bookend of morning-til-night life. All the angles are different, the sounds are both clearer and muddier, somehow at once. And, as soon as you become invested in the story, it's ended already, without denouement.