Unfunky Funk

I'm in a funk, but not an obvious funk. Not like a big, ugly rut. Just a kind of small, shallow funk ... shallow but wide.

What I mean to say is, I feel as though I'm both stuck and lost at the same time.

I wake up, I go to work, I do my work, I do everything I should do. Shouldn't that give me some satisfaction? Shouldn't I glean something from my life that is more than merely the ability to breathe?

I feel at times like I am suffocating, stifled by the responsibilities and the interminable duties I am smothered by- not only as an employee, but also as a woman, as a person in their 20's, as a daughter, as a Korean, as a sister, as a cousin, as a niece, as a friend, as a church-goer, as an American, as a neighbor, as someone alive.

I am told that this is something like depression. To me, it doesn't feel like depression. It feels like a state of mind that only I have the power to snap out of. It feels like the kind of haze that I felt the very first time I got drunk, when I was just crossing over from tipsy into smashed. Even then, I felt that the haze was something I could snap out of when it was the appropriate time and when I had the awareness to know that the time had come. I definitely feel that hazes should be wallowed in, because trying to rush out of a haze has never done me any good- they last as long as they're going to last, whether I like it or not, whether I fight it or not.

None of the emotions I have ever felt are regrettable (forgettable, perhaps, but I don't regret them). Having a broken heart, feeling like I would never be able to stop crying, or having a fit of giggles, laughing so hard I get the hiccups, plus everything in-between- all are valid, are all necessary to me.

My best friend and I have something we always say to each other: "Higher highs and lower lows."

Essentially, in order to get the most out of life (the highs), we must also experience correlating lows, those stagnant periods or those dreary moments in life when all one can do is sigh heavily. The higher the highs, the lower the lows. Conversely, though, the lower the low, the higher the upcoming high.

I believe this to be true. I'm in a low right now that makes me feel like a great high is coming, just beyond my view.