on feelings

Sometimes I feel things I can't describe. Words, after all, are an afterthought; feel first then try to explain. The attempt leaves me pretty inarticulate, fumbling for words and trying to string enough of them together to hopefully, eventually, paint a picture of how I feel. I wish I could paint. Painting how I feel would do more justice than words.

I think feelings are an art within themselves, that's why art provokes an emotional response from us, that's why music makes us sore with grandness or sulk into moodiness, that's why looking at a painting of a ship wrecking itself in a stormy sea sends us into quiet introspection with a hint of sadness. Deny yourself art in whatever form suits you and you deny yourself at least some sort of connection with how you feel.

I remember walking around my high school when I was a student feeling things that I had no idea how to communicate. I'd look to nature to explain my feelings to myself. There was something... something in how the cherry blossoms burst into bloom and then fell like snow to the ground. There was something about the forest and how the warm summer wind would rush through the leaves in the evening. There was something about the ocean and the massive crashing waves with all that majestic power. There was something so delicate about the world and something so dangerously big and powerful.

Sometimes I need to stop trying to articulate myself and just accept that I feel things and it's okay to not understand it.