There is no language that can truly hold certain feelings. But somehow, this world has managed to limit feelings within the boundaries of certain languages, making them almost intranslatable.
I have been sitting with this since January this year, trying to name a certain emotion, rather a cluster of emotions, I think. I can't quite pin down, but I'll only try my best to describe it. It took me years to even realize it as a feeling, or the fact that if I let myself unravel enough, I am capable of feeling far more than I know how to hold.
Is there a name for this feeling when someone waits for something for so long that they begin to build entire worlds around it? They build castles in the air, rehearse moments in their head, and plan out every minute carefully? And when it is finally happening, they catch themselves midway through it, thinking: This is it; it is happening, and soon, it will already have happened. This epiphany leaves a void; it is not grief, not sadness, not wisdom translating discomfort into comfort. It is just a void, probably holding that realization one attained while living it.
I am not so good with endings; I am scared of beginnings, even. It is the space between them I find comfort in, it is the middle, they say. But not quite the middle. I haven't come close to naming this feeling, but I am sure that this feeling is not Anticipatory Nostalgia. There is no concluding sadness, rather a void. Just a void. I am drawing inferences, trying to understand it, and naming it. At the end, all I am left with is a map: a way to slip inside the void and come out of it, both at my own will. But there is no way to relive these moments again. Probably, this is what they call "once-in-a-lifetime" feeling? I am not sure...
Is there, somewhere, an anthology where writers have gathered their most unnameable feelings, so that what remains unsaid in one life might find its echo in another?
I'd like to add a few...