And Then The Melancholy

Lately I feel like I'm missing something. Just since last night. Everything is fantastic, I mean, I'm still avoiding two of my essays that are due in 4-5 days, which is quite a weight on my shoulders, but nothing new. But I still feel like there is something missing, something important intrinsically missing from my here and now. It is not a sharp void, not a hole with a shape that can be easily identified, but a pervasive undefined absence. But somehow I get the feeling that I wouldn't be feeling it if he were here. Not that he is necessarily the thing to fill the vacancy, but because I would forget about whatever it is in his presence.
I feel like I’ve forgotten something. Like there’s something I’m meant to have in my bag and in a moment I’m going to realise that I need it. Like I’ve been wandering around all day without something I always wear. Like my silver ring, or my underwear. Like someone I know died, and in a moment I will turn around to talk to them and they won’t be there. Phantom limb syndrome; or the like. That sort of permeating abstract entity and sense of loss.

I wrote all of this outside on the concrete promenade near where my philosophy lecture is held, not thinking about what it could be, not thinking I had to make excuses, not thinking anyone might see what it was because I myself had no clue.
I got it home, and it put it down here, and my immediate thought was: “It’s not the songs!”
That’s not what I’m missing. What an awful thought. That might all be very ironic, but it’s not true or possible. First of all I still sing; I still hear a good song and hit record and listen to myself back – that’s a habit that will take a bit of growing out of. But I am beginning to hear myself. Finally. Or lose my self-esteem. One or the other. Either way I think I am sounding worse. All those people I thought couldn’t sing, all those people that made me think I at least had a chance, because I was better than them, sing a lot better than I do. I can hear myself coming unhinged at the edges, going off at the start and the end, floundering in the middle. That semi-tone that once sounded like a harmony sounds like fingernails down the blackboard now; like Australian Idol auditions; like bad karaoke; like the truth of what other people have been hearing out of my mouth all this time. And that stings, and it’s a relief too. It’s sad, but it’s grounding. Every time I sound like I am getting worse, I know I am making progress. Hearing myself more clearly. At least basing myself in reality, even if I am not improving.

There is a real sense of purposelessness about me. I feel like I am meandering; flopping; lolling. And I don’t know why. I have uni, I have a home to go to, I have a most wonderful boyfriend, and I’m in love. So why do I still feel like I am missing something? And, more importantly, what am I missing?

☆