Once we’re done feeling our feelings, where do they go?

2023 ended on a pretty bad note for me. I still find myself at a place feeling things I’ve never felt before (or so I think). In the space between sleepless nights, loss of appetite, and a whole other bunch of things I’d not wish on anyone- arose a thought.

“Once we’re done feeling our feelings, where do they go?”

Do they cease to exist? Do they transform into different ones? I’d like to believe there’s a place in the realm of nothingness where all of them are stored. In tiny little jars. Glass Jars.

Maybe feelings are not fleeting and transient. Maybe they are distinct, complete, and timeless entities given to us for a while and once we are done feeling them, we put them back in the universe (Read: Jars). Until we take them again.

The lids don’t ever fully close. Maybe that’s why it’s so goddamn hard to have unique singular human experiences. Has everything that has to be felt already been felt before?

I scream into the abyss (Read: Reddit) - “Has this specific jar been opened before?”. I thought I did this hoping the internet would echo back to me — ‘of course, it has been’.

But how sick and self-involved does one have to be to secretly wish that it has not been opened yet? As if that would justify the pathetic-ness of it.

Would it though? Asking for a friend.

It’s a three-course meal always. There are always two complementary jars that just tag along.

For the appetizer ‘resistance’ is served cold. As we make our way through it, comes the main course which we were prepared for. Finally, for dessert, a healthy portion of ‘guilt/shame’ (of feeling what we felt) brings the meal together.

But hang on, the catch is, you are blindfolded. So you don’t know which bite you’re gonna get next.

Anyway, seems like my current meal is gonna take a while to finish. Care to join me at the dinner table? I’ll wait.