I have come to find that one of the biggest feelings you can feel is that of a hollow, empty, reckless emotion that evades any possible reason or cause. It whips you around at times, completely unexpectedly, striking you from the edges like a car nicking your side and sending you reeling into some utter tragedy.

It is not something controllable, and the dangerous carelessness of it all becomes a comfort; a sort of safe haven in knowing that something serious could so very easily happen. And yet, sometimes the thought of a tragic event is what is actually desired, needed. The beautiful slowness and shock of it all, the smallest details in that collision with another car; the shards of glass shooting outward in a rain of angry water, and the horrific silence that comes during the roaring deafness that covers the senses, rending the mind into a state of sensory overload far different from normal.

It is a violently peaceful feeling.

It is the recklessness of that emptiness that I find comforting. The complex, detailed, intricate beauty of the terrible emotion. The knowledge that I still love, and that should something happen to someone I love, I would be jolted right back into reality, away from that hanging spot between two oblivions. That spot between heaven and hell, and not caring which one I make it to, or if I make it at all.

I find that once this emotion completely emerses me, I become near invincible — or, at least, that’s how it feels. I ignore the things that I know will rip away that invincibility. Things like intimate conversations with the most important person in my life; something that I have also found drives rifts between us until I become able to unwrap my mind of the cloud that caresses its edges, and return to shore. I ignore the touch of another person, the concern and expressed hurt in their eyes when I turn them away.
Well, I try to ignore it. Sometimes it drives me further into the collosal emptiness, and other times it is the rope I need to safely pull me away from it.

I know that I cannot ignore their wishes or discomforts. I will not allow myself to knowingly be the cause. These are the only things that I cannot overcome with this feeling. Maybe the love is strong enough that it overpowers the thrill of the lack of emotion, or that I am simply too weak to succumb to such acts of such extreme selfishness. The one thing I hate most about myself is my selfishness. It is a difficult war to wage.

Back to the topic. You begin to focus on detail. The colors of the horizon or the patterns of the leaves on a tree. The amount of times she laughs, or the way the corner of his lip curves in a half smile, the way the wind rushes past and how many times its breath has touched you. It is as though you refuse to communicate so you wishdraw instead; become a different person entirely. Empowered and weakened, protecting yourself both from the harms that could come to you in this vulnerability, this nakedness, and from the gentle care that you may continuously receive from the hearts of your closest friends.

I both hate and love this feeling. What’s broken in my brain?

It holds contradictions. Weakness and strength, the desire to be held and the sting of my skin when something brushes it, or the intensity of detail and the want for a view of everything.
It is one of the deepest, heart-wrenching, painful feelings ever experienced. However, sometimes it is the pain that makes it so appealing. The return to something familiar, the letting go and drowning in it; the protective strength in feeling alone. It is knowing that you are alive because you feel such a pain that you cannot share it with another person — would not wish it on someone else. Knowing that you are strong, because you are strong enough to bear it alone.

When the feeling fades, the world slips off your shoulders. It sinks further than you did when you were drowning, past the line of the horizon, between harbor and maelstrom; yet always within reach should you need to tuck yourself away again.

Post-stroke depression is a bitch. Smile anyway.