This Feeling I Cannot Voice

This feeling I cannot voice…it is everything and nothing all at once. Some may call it an enigma. A feeling that the richest man cannot buy and yet the poorest man may find in abundance. Science has even tried to break it down to chemicals and atoms. But those that try to explain it away with simple logic or try to attain it by less than savory means are missing the point entirely. It is a feeling that infects every aspect of one's being from head to heart. 

It drowns and it saves. Like an endlessly vast ocean it dunks your heart into its salty brine. It turns an average man into a sailor that wishes to explore its depths no matter how treacherous the waters may get. Many find themselves a slave to the call of the sea unable to resist its becconning. Others stuff their ears and turn from the waves lapping at the edge, afraid to take the jump and leave the safety of land behind. No compass sophisticated enough to traverse this endless ocean has been made to point one in the right direction. Some stumble and fall, succumbing to the watery deep letting it drag you down. While others sally forth and find their way to port every time.

It feels like walking barefoot on the grass in a verdant meadow with nothing but the clothes on your back. Nothing but the wind at your back and the sunlight pouring onto your face. Like trailing your fingers through the overgrown grass and letting the sweet scent of the newly blossomed flowers fill your senses. Bringing with it the feeling of warmth and satisfaction that fills your very soul. Many open their arms to welcome the warmth and beauty this feeling brings to them. To them an eternal spring reins for them in this garden they have crafted for themselves. It can dunk the heart into wine. Drench it in this honey sweetness that feels like a dream. A sweetness that can easily make one addicted. It is a feeling where something as small as a smile can light you on fire and keep you burning for days to come. It makes you want to dance until you're out of breath. Then dance some more. It makes you never want to leave that meadow that makes you feel so alive and happy.

Though some may never experience the richness of that lovely sunny meadow but rather find themselves within a forest amongst a sudden rainstorm. They feel lost and drenched. The feeling of confusion and fear may cloud their minds, no chance of sun in sight. They may come to despise the feeling. A desire to forsake every forest and shudder at the hint of a rainstorm may overtake them. We humans often become frightened by the thought of being lost or being overwhelmed by the unknown. Thus it leads us to shun and turn our backs on that which we think will hurt us. Yet this feeling always seems to creep upon us when we least expect it, dragging us back into that forest. So we steal ourselves for this eventuality and try our best to create a map to lead us home. But there are those out there that confront this fear and trek on into the endless forest and its rain getting to know every tree and rock on their way to the unknown.

To some the feeling is likened to a religion. A place to lay bare our souls and welcome an all consuming devotion into their hearts. They bow their heads before the deity they have chosen master of their heart. It can be their salvation from the darkness they may find themselves in. The tether to pull them free from the depths of hell itself. Many shun this depth of devotion to this feeling because one can ultimately become blind to anything else. Some may even become chained before they realize. They lose themselves to the feeling and forsake everything else. Thus if their devotion ever comes to nought or their devotion is rewarded with the destruction of their altar, those chains may become their noose. Too much of anything, no matter how good it is, can lead to one's destruction. 

Wars have been waged for less. This feeling infects every man that dawns a piece of armor or takes up a weapon. It is there at the start. It is there at the end. Even when misery begins to set in and hope seems to be lost the feeling still finds a little ember, a small spark to ignite into an inferno. The feeling connects us. It makes us realize we are not so different from one another. It makes us human. It makes us see friend from foe. Enemy from an ally. We build the world upon this feeling. It makes us feel like sailors sailing the sea. A wanderer walking in the warm sun. A lost soul in search of a way out. A believer in need of salvation. 

It is our end and our beginning. A feeling of contradictions. Something that we all know but is unknowable at the same time. An endless cycle we live until our last breath. Some try to chase it their whole lives. It brings the greatest joys and the deepest sorrows. It is there from the moment we take our first breaths and it continues to exist long after we breathe our last. 

But this feeling does not stop with romance. It pervades every aspect of our lives. We feel it in the bright gazes of our parents as they look upon us. We hear it in the bubbling laughter of our friends as we stumble through life together. We not only give this feeling but we receive it as well. It surrounds us everyday whether we know it or not. We encompass this vast and extraordinary feeling into a single word. A word that can bring the greatest joys and the greatest sorrows. A word that we give to those closest to us and to those we cherish with every part of our being. What a lovely word.