A strange experience happened to me recently that I can only describe as some serious, cosmic shit.
Some people may argue it’s just a weird coincidence from a computer glitch, but I say it’s some serious, cosmic shit and was more likely a glitch in the matrix. I was watching a documentary on Netflix (the real MVP) called Expedition Happiness. It’s an inspiring tale about a German couple who make a school bus into a home and travel all around North America with their dog being white and shit. They kick off in Canada and much of the scenery reminded me of my home in Colorado I left behind for the Big Apple some months ago. The mountainous terrain inspired images from the last camping trip I took right before moving.
The trip was a send off of sorts with those closest to me and some I didn’t know so well, but it was a solid group nonetheless. The weather was perfect, the backdrop was intense, and so were we with our glow-sticks and conversations. We talked about “things” and how they're always getting in the way of life, which I didn’t fully grasp that night but later would after packing my life into a car and moving it across the country. The camping trip was a blast, but there was something hanging heavy over me because I knew this was it. We all agreed I’d come home for future camping trips and for this and for that, but we knew this was it. We all knew a part of our lives we loved dearly and didn’t want to let go of was ending, and this was it - ya feel me?
I sat in my NYC, shoebox sized room watching this documentary, now a world apart from that time out in the open wilderness, when I realized just that. A part of my life was over. I traded it in for a new one, but it didn't mean I loved the other life any less. I might even love it more now. This sensation was so intense it coursed a glum, heaviness through my entire body. I could feel "then" more now than I could feel it then. It was a painful feeling, but also an electric feeling. Like I was connected, or charged, or plugged in. At first all I could do was cry, but then I felt the urge to explain what was happening so I wrote. First in my journal, then on my computer because pain is blog.
I just had to express this alien sensation before it could leave. So I began to think of various words that would possibly commence. There were hints of nostalgia mixed with homesickness, but this cut much deeper. Sadness and longing, but also a strong sense of gratitude. It suddenly all seemed interconnected, the lives of others along with mine and the cities we inhabit - like we're all one! Did I just fucking transcend? Maybe for a minute, but I decided this was impermanence at it's finest - but beyond just saying the word and knowing what it means, this was truly feeling it. I named the experience Estalgia.
Estalgia (noun) is the sudden sensation that accompanies the realization that one specific part of your life is over and that you will never have it back, because no one will be as they were then - now, or ever again. I knew moving away meant a new life, but I hadn’t felt it yet. Life begins and ends constantly. Every moment in fact. But how often do we feel it? How often are we so connected to our lives that we can feel one moment end and the next one begin?
But wait, there's more...
Something else happened that really shook me. I took a break from typing after feeling I had said all I wanted to say about the experience, when suddenly the computer began deleting the blog by no doing of my own. I hit the keys in an attempt to stop it but nothing worked. The blog just deleted itself, letter by letter, all the way until it was a blank page. I watched all the words I spilled from my heart about this new emotion I discovered vanish before my eyes. I stopped crying. I stared at the screen and got some some serious, creepy vibes, because what in the fuck was that? Was my computer hacked by some psycho? Is someone watching me through the camera and reading my blogs and fucking with me?! If so that person is as tragic as I am and we should meet (if you’re reading this, sup).
I closed the computer, leaving me no other choice but to sit with my new emotion - so I did. I didn’t try to explain it to myself, or to you rather, I just let it happen and within a few moments I felt calmer. Once the creepy sensation subdued, I took a moment to reconcile what just happened. It seemed as though life just spelled something out for me in a serious, cosmic way.
I don't want it to sound like there isn't some explanation for it, likely my computer had a glitch. Or maybe I do have a cyber stalker who hacked my computer, in which case I have reached a new level of status in life and am super grateful to him/her for taking an interest in me. But I still believe it was something else. I believe it was a cosmic happening because whether the glitch happened on it's own or by some white man in the sky (or some white man on the internet - or black man - or a bi-racial woman - whothefuckever) I can't explain it for certain which leaves a mystic feeling. But maybe it's possible we spend too much of our time defining and explaining that sometimes we forget how mystical life actually is. It was truly uncanny to write a documentation of an experience regarding impermanence to instantly have it delete itself right before my very eyes. It really is ironic, don’t ya think?
Not everything is a riddle to be solved, some experiences are just meant to be had. Arguably all of life could be such. And I know discovering, uncovering, and questioning is in our DNA, but that night in that instance I felt like I was told to sit back and do the opposite. Life said be here with what you're feeling and be happy you're feeling, because you tried to not feel for thirty god damned years - and now it's time. And maybe it took a lifetime of not feeling, and a recent camping trip with the perfect humans, and a heart-felt, sentimental documentary while sitting on a bed in NYC to bring it all out, but hot damn it was about fucking time!
Maybe it's not that synchronicity isn't real, we're just usually numbing ourselves to the concept that you can actually connect to yourself, others, and the planet. Perhaps the more receptive and caring we are to our lives and the lives around us, the more we're able to feel them and experience happenings that can't quite be explained with logic or reason. And maybe that's the most clever part about this life; that even for as far as the sciences have come that I appreciate with my whole heart, we still can't define consciousness. So don't forget to enjoy it while you're also trying to understand it, or hell, even trying to avoid it. Maybe synchronicity is bullshit, and instances like these and paying attention to signs only happen because we're looking for and therefore creating them. But does that it make it any less meaningful than if they were "actually real"?
This is just a little guy explaining some silly, cosmic, major, unexplained, force that has set me down a new path of enlightenment, no big deal, whatever. But I have a few more much larger topics I'll be diving into like; believing that people ACTUALLY want to connect with you and how you're fucking up your own reality by believing otherwise. Also, let's start talking about the narratives in our heads and how much these fuckers hold us back. Love ya guys! Go feel something today.