A Song for the In Between

It may be over.

Despite its nature, the concept is definitive. The body is better at preparation than action, so the concept invokes an uncontrolled reaction. The sweaty palms; the rusted coils in the stomach; the feeling of teetering on the edge—my body thinks I’m dying.

It tries to save me from myself. It transforms into a spring to weather elements. Or a boulder. I am hunched, prepared for the event.

But there’s nothing to save me from. My life isn’t in danger. I’m not being chased by a wolf. I sit on the couch. I sit in my chair, still. I am, in theory, perfectly healthy. Yet my mind paces. It tells my body that I’m falling and to prepare for the splat. When you fall in dreams, your mind saves you with a jolt. No death. No splat.

But my mind sees the end is nigh. It feels the teetering slow fall of what is coming. The long descent. The long splat. Slow motion, Matrix style. The signals from my mind pour out to my pores like electricity.

It prepares me for the new possibility: It may be over. 

If my body is preparing me for the long splat, then maybe I’m my own best friend. My body—with all its autonomous reactions and chemical preparations—has my concern in mind more than others.

In the face of a threat that isn’t there, it prepares me. Science says it stems from when humans were primates responding to an unseen threat. When danger is present but unseen, the feeling arises. It triggers a heightened sense of awareness, increased blood flow, and an underlying feeling of restlessness or unease. The body becomes primed for something that never really comes.

It’s the ultimate defense mechanism, and it never works. Ultimately you’re just left there, tight and pinned. You wait for something to happen. The mind is aware of no immediate danger, but it can’t control the meager attempts to combat the horrifying possibility of lost control. 

That’s all it boils down to, really: control, or uncontrolled. It is not over. It may be over.

I don’t do well with the gray area between the binary positions. The limbo of going from it may be to it is. The falling point between on the cliff and splat. To float between two points for any period of time is what causes the anxiety. You just want confirmation that something is certain. Yes, you’re not. No, you are. Yes, it’s over. No, it’s not.

But it may be over; that “may” is a wart on life. My life.

With this state amassed over weeks, lying like a swollen grape on the couch, there’s a lyric in Bon Iver’s song “22 (Over Soon)” that plays: “It might be over soon, two two.”

During the time of making the song, Justin Vernon (of Bon Iver) was going through a rough spot in his own life. The feelings he experienced while making the song could be categorized as what some call bad. These feelings swelled and dissipated. In an interview he recalled the general negative feeling could be over soon—a phrase he considered to be a positive or a negative. In that in-between of the “might,” he embraced the gray space of the positive or the negative. The song uplifts me with its stuttering vocals and imbued meaning. It also weighs me down. It might be over soon. It might be over soon. 

It may be over — 

— and what will become of me? I’ll have to untangle everything we’ve coiled ourselves with. Where will my memories go of you? What about the moments that lead us here? In turmoil’s throw, you are the port. I need you.

— but I will be fine. I’ll put everything we built into a box and store it, and recall the journey as one would a polaroid. I will remember you as a lesson, not a destination. But the moments we built will stand forever, and serve as beacons. I don’t need you.

[Cover photo by Clay Banks via Unsplash]

LISTEN:

22 (over soon) — bon iver

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