Monday Mood: Something Undefined

By Violet McCleod, Madeline

I like things I can define. Feelings I can sort into categories. If I can name it, I can fix it. If I can fix it, I can survive it. That’s the logic, anyway. I’ve always wanted to hold my emotions at arm’s length, like labeling them would give me power over them. But sometimes a feeling shows up that refuses to be boxed in. It doesn’t have a name, or a clear beginning, or a neat resolution. It just lingers – and that drives me wild.

I want to make sense of it. I want to trace it back to its origin and find the clean little knot I can untangle. But this kind of feeling isn’t interested in being solved. It shows up in the moments I least expect, like static humming under the skin. It feels like missing something I never had, or waiting for something I can’t describe. It’s not exactly pain. It’s not exactly hope. It’s just there, sitting quietly in the space between everything else I understand.

I don’t like that. I like systems. I like stories with structure, beginnings and endings, meaning I can make sense of. But I’m starting to realize that some of the most honest parts of me live outside that structure. That not every feeling is meant to be productive, or poetic, or healed. That some things are just meant to be sat with – not solved.

"Dysphoria" - Original Composition (Doctor Who: Starlit Saga)

We’re all likely familiar with the feeling of a half-remembered dream, especially the last moments where we wake and grasp at the last little shreds we can remember. Maybe it’s not even a good dream; I would be just as curious to remember a nightmare as a fairly standard dream, as both can be informative on the current state of a person. I often wonder how I’m doing subconsciously, so I certainly make that last grasp at my dreams when I can. If I can manage to do that, maybe I can remember the entire thing, right? Not always, it seems. 

Some little feelings can just follow me all day, like a question I know that I’ve heard before, but I can’t quite remember the answer. Maybe the answer changes every time; why else would it be so difficult? After all, if I feel a feeling for long enough, I figure that I should be able to put a label on it and Google ways that I can circumvent the confusion that comes with it. Sometimes, there’s even a word for it.

“Dysphoria” is one such word. It’s not as centered on gender as I initially thought when I heard it thrown at me several years ago. Merriam-Webster calls it “a state of feeling very unhappy, uneasy, or dissatisfied.” That tracks, doesn’t it? This particular thing of mine, when isolated, is more than a buzzword thrown around in legacy media and therapy appointments; it’s a dissonance that can only be defined by a word that almost seems to drag itself out of my mouth when I say it aloud. 

There is no end-all solution to it. There is no beginning, middle, or end. It is a state of being that, for lack of a better definition, can only be summed up by that single umbrella word. It’s a feeling that my body isn’t my own, one I can feel. It won’t go away, and it’s always there. It’s everywhere, or at least, as long as I’m aware. Honestly, as much as I care about my dreams, sometimes, I do wish I could just sleep instead.

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