Last year, I chaperoned a trip to London with my students. One of the teachers suggested we wile away the time (and drown out the awful French rap the kids were listening to) by singing songs over the speaker system in the bus. I was ALL for it, because I love being on stage and in the spotlight. The only problem is that I’m half as old as all of the other teachers, so finding some musical tastes in common would be quite a feat.
Everyone likes Queen, though, right?
The physical education teacher wanted to sing “I Want to Break Free” by Queen, but, at the time, I only vaguely knew how the song went. I’m a “Somebody to Love” kind of girl, liking to hit the high notes whether I can do it well or not.
Referencing my last post on being a curious person, I read up on Queen and Mercury in particular. It is undeniable that Mercury was a spectacular performer and vocalist. Despite the tragically short life and terrible demise, it seemed that his was a beautiful soul. I often wonder what he would have been able to do had he lived. Don’t we all?
In researching Queen and trying to learn that damn song before the next trip to London (in case the PE teacher wants to do karaoke on the bus), I have played it repeatedly on Youtube, to the point that I even dream about this song. It’s a little pathetic, but I’ve grown to love it immensely.
It’s a song that speaks.
I know it has something to do with needing to leave a romantic partner, but it always spoke to me in a different way.
We get into a kind of rut in life, don’t we? So many people are unsatisfied with their job, particularly, but also with themselves, either externally or internally.
For me, my rut is all three.
Since coming to France, I gained six kilograms (13 lbs) and have successfully lost two and a half (5.5 lbs) but still have a way to go before I feel comfortable in my skin.
I am not entirely satisfied with my job, a sentiment that I share with much of the world, I think. I don’t enjoy it. It just pays the bills. I love most of my students, but administrative stuff gets on my nerves. I want to have a job wherein I punch the clock and it’s over — I can go home, relax, drink all the beers and just rest.
Mentally, I’m not in the best place, but I suppose it’s getting better. That’s a trend I’ve seen very frequently online: so many people are unhappy. Depression is absolutely rampant. When you think about it, isn’t that terrifying? Everyone is sad, and worse, they are absolutely incapacitated. A quick scan of Reddit comments shows that a large group of users have depression, anxiety, and are at a complete standstill.
But it isn’t just them…it’s me, too.
It’s an odd feeling — you want to get up, you want to do great things, you want to complete your daily tasks and succeed at life, but you absolutely cannot bring yourself to do it. There is an invisible, palpable barrier preventing you from rising from your chair. It’s of course all mental, but thus spoke Dumbledore,
Of course it’s happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?
That’s the thing — I have vivid dreams of running through the yellow canola fields outside my town. I have dreams of paddling a boat down the little creek in the woods (though even someone as woefully ignorant in physics as I am can see that a boat wouldn’t float in that shallow water). I have dreams of showing up at my parents’ (now mothers’) doorstep with a book in hand, with my face on the author’s page. But there is this barrier…these chains…that I know are mental but are holding me back nonetheless.
I so desperately want to break free. I, like so many others, want to feel content. I know my life is amazing compared to those in developing countries, to those who have handicaps or handicapped children, or to those who are living with insufferable and incurable diseases. Mine — ours — is a disease of the mind, though. I want to believe and trust that I can succeed. My body is ready, but my mind is holding me back.
God knows I’ve got to break free, if only to keep on going.
Depression is so rampant today. What in the world can we do about it?
What the Phoque? 