Remembering to remember when I can’t seem to remember | #20

Gloomy day thoughts

Hey friends,

Sometimes I struggle with low mood triggered by things like interpersonal conflicts, the weather or jet lag. I’ve become better at managing my mood over time but whenever I experience a dip, it is always hard. Sharing a piece I wrote about Monday’s struggle.

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I woke up early this morning with restlessness. When I say early, I am talking at 4 am and not intentionally. My inability to sleep is followed by a sense that a dreaded mood was coming my way for the rest of the day. When the sun rose, the sky was grey and the gloomy weather that ensued did not help either. Days like this makes me feel like there is no hope. Days like this make me question how I have been able to live in London for nearly a decade. 

Days like this spiral downwards. I lie awake unable to sleep and random thoughts start to trickle into my head. The people I went to school with and friends of the past -- what are they up to now? 

Suddenly I am on social media looking up one person after another, so absorbed in the act of keeping tabs that two hours have passed. On days like these, even simple photos of a smile and a throwaway quote like ‘at the beach with (insert name of friend or significant other’ of an apparent good life can get to me. What is it about how to live that they seem to have understood which I hadn’t? I often ask myself this question when I see that even the people who don’t ask for a lot find love and seem happy. 

I think it could be my overthinking brain. Thinking too much about the consequences of everything, fearing too much about the possibilities of a misstep when everyone else is probably just out there giving it a try. I am at home plotting out the probability of each decision leading to a bad outcome and the cost of that. 

I sometimes wonder if I malfunctioned along the way and ended up not knowing how to live. Living is simple, right? So why do I find it so hard? And why, on days as grey as this, do I feel so deeply hopeless and lost? 

I thought I’d reach a point where I felt grounded in purpose — in my paintings and drawings, in the creation and expression of art. But even art could not save me today. I opted not to go to the oil painting class that usually graces my Monday, and instead laid in bed while an unexpected machine drilled a deep hole into the tarmac of the street by my open window. Sleep is not mine today, I suppose.

On days like these, I want to escape. But where? My mind provides no solace. The world feels far away from me and my body feels floaty in space. And not in a good way.

I try so hard to find ground beneath my feet, to feel like there is purpose and that somewhere on this journey things will start to feel okay. And not only will things start to feel okay — with fingers crossed on both hands — they start to stay that way. 

On days like this, I feel like the day is stretched out in front of me with emptiness, devoid of any plans. What do I do on such a day? Despite endless possibilities, I’m not filled with excitement – but anxiety.

I fear that time will run out and I will look back on the day disgusted with myself for not having made anything of it. because oh, time is such a precious jewel. 

Although I attempt to make the day the most-est it could be, the time slips through my hands. And the self-disgust becomes stronger and stronger. I don’t know what to do with myself except to make some small plans. 

Take one step forward. Maybe it is socks on, a coat over my shoulder and then out the door. Just walk. Keep walking, walk out the thoughts, walk out the pain, walk out the fear, walk out the sadness. Nowhere to go, nowhere to be. 

Today I go with a semi-goal orientated direction to the National Gallery in the centre of London. On gloomy days like this, London is still beautiful, and its beauty peeks out from beneath the bland. I try so hard on days like these to remember. Remember the blue skied days, where I felt full of life and light, where anything seemed possible. Remember the sun-filled mornings where I would journal outside with a blanket and after breakfast, lie back with a blanket over me, looking up at the clouds passing by. 

Or on days where the sun is out and the wind is still, I’d go out on my longboard and feel the earth whizz by underneath me. And I’d intuitively dance, swaying my hips with the laws of nature so that I fly high and I go fast. I remember those days when the concrete waves, my private piste in the centre of London gives me such a high. At the bottom of the runway, I’d tuck my longboard — all 42 inches of it — under my upper left arm. And run, in flat-based shoes built for skateboarders and longboarders like me, marked with city dirt and scuffs, with the biggest smile on my face, up the pedestrian path, back to the top of my private piste. And then I might, if energy persists, fly down on my board and run up and fly down again. Life seems so simple on days like that, don’t they? 

Or those Sundays, when the sun starts to set. And while I’d just spent six hours painting on Saturday, I am filled again with deep excitement, joy, and anticipation for the next day when I’ll be back in the studio with my favourite oil painting teacher, studying this mystical art, drinking from the infinite fountain of methods and skills and perspective and colour. After tucking myself into bed, I’d plead with whoever ruled the universe that sleep comes swiftly and deeply so the next day appears quickly. And then back on the bicycle, I’d pump the pedals fast for the the eighteen minutes, through red lights and green men and pedestrians and red buses, uphill towards this little secret gem of an art studio to continue on this restless journey to knowing more about the interconnected and divine act of painting. Semi-satisfied after a day of painting, I’d allow myself some rest before picking up the brush again in two day’s time.

On days like these, meaning does not need to be interrogated. It is present and alive. It roars with atmosphere and life and possibilities and anticipation as the palette knife blends two colours to form a third, the arrangement of colour forming a picture on my canvas. The creation of art, the expression of emotion and the conveyance of experience through a visual language. 

I hope to find ways to remember the joy, the life, the vivaciousness I feel on those days when, in doom and gloom, I question the very nature of existence. 

I feel like this poem captures that well:

Love
Caryn