joy

I have this nagging, almost desperate feeling that I’m not reaching my full potential. It’s not about efficiency. It’s that somehow I got stuck in this niche, this routine of activities, hobbies, and social interactions that make me only moderately happy. They keep me moving, but they don’t fill me with anything apart from fleeting joy or happiness. Religion club, book discussions, conversation hours, they’re things I want to do, but they’re subordinate to singing, to poetry, to swing dancing. I love to swing dance. There is something glorious in the carelessness, the child-like activity of spinning and kicking and holding a partner. I miss it, that joy, that adrenaline rush. The flushed, exhausted contentment. I miss the introspection and complex emotion conveyed through simplistic, quiet, imagery. I haven’t let my mind rest long enough to allow words, phrases, and insight accumulate into anything that resembles art. What I miss - and what troubles me - the most is singing. My voice has altered from an area of contentment to a trigger for pain, an entanglement of bitterness, sorrow, feelings of inadequacy. I’m losing my voice. Singing has been a source of stability. And I still need it; I need to learn, to understand my voice, to harmonize, to perform. I need to do the things that make me see everything with more light, more contentment, more poetry. I need to stop crying when I think about singing.

I need to sing instead.