The Pain of Happy Memories

I never cry. I can distinctly remember a day in elementary school when I no longer cried. I remember hurting myself in a way that would normally cause me to cry. To my puzzlement I didn't cry. Perhaps I have cried since then, but I have no such recollection. I have seen parents divorce, family members, grand parents die.  People I loved and cared about. Yet, I never cried.

It is not out of some desire to be a tough guy. It is actually quite bothersome. You sit in church for a funeral and everyone around you is crying. But you cannot feel it. It is a profound sense of being an outsider. I would try hard to make myself cry. Search for the feeling that would make it happen, but no it wouldn't come.

I have tried to make sense of it. It may appear as if I don't have empathy but I would say that it is quite the opposite. For instance I could never watch things like "funny home videos" where somebody had accidents that look very silly.

I could never laugh when somebody hurt themselves, no matter how silly the accident looked. Certainly not when children hurt themselves. That always bothered me. Yet, I actually have quite a black humor. I don't have so much issue with people hurting themselves in a funny setting in a movie. I know it is not real. But if people hurt themselves in real life. Actual people. No, I never liked that.

I do care about a lot of the injustices in the world. Generally I would say I find the average person around the world too cynical. But despite their cynicism I think most people are fundamentally good people. We all have our flaws.

It is just peculiar I find that what made my eyes run today was watching some video of happy memories of my kids as toddlers. Them being clumsy throwing rocks into the water at the beach. A last day at pre-school with the kids singing totally unsynchronized has kids do. My youngest on a swing, and me asking if he wants to go faster. He isn't quite sure if he is going fast enough. Both kids jumping in water and touching a small water fountain. Just daily life several years ago.

It was my wife watching them. Not my choice. I never choose to watch images and videos from the past. I was reminded why today. It hurts too much. It hurts specifically because it was happy memories. It hurts because I loved those kids so much. They are still with me of course. But I miss the times we had then at that age. But it also hurts because so much of those years was with the depression I still have. I had many happy moments, but I often could not fully appreciate them because depression wash out your whole emotional life and turn it gray.

You are there but not really. The years become a haze. I have been so tuned out for so many years. Parents of other kids I never made friends with but should have. A mentally healthy version of me would have. So many important days in their lives I didn't pay attention to. Years lost I can never get back. I am burning up all the years I got allotted in life. Maybe I will get well one day, but I will never get back the most important years of my life.

They are still amazing kids doing all sorts of cool stuff. But I am so tuned out from it all most of the time. It is like my time on the this planet is fine sand in my hand. I try to grasp it. Hold onto it but it just runs out.  The sands of time just pours out of my hand. I cannot stop it. I don't know how.