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It was one of those days when I started out feeling low for reasons that feel foolish. It can be described as anemoia. In my case the time I have never known is the longing for having a life that would appear more "normal" to my own world-view. It was therapeutic to dredge through The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows to find words that defined how I felt that morning. The one that came close to perfect was nodus tollens

n. the realization that the plot of your life doesn’t make sense to you anymore—that although you thought you were following the arc of the story, you keep finding yourself immersed in passages you don’t understand, that don’t even seem to belong in the same genre—which requires you to go back and reread the chapters you had originally skimmed to get to the good parts, only to learn that all along you were supposed to choose your own adventure.

Choosing your own adventure is something I was never comfortable doing. My favored way was always to go with the flow of events, not make any sharp moves or big decisions. As luck would have it, I was forced by circumstances to do all of the things that were inherently uncomfortable for me. Had to break from the flow by force, make drastic moves and irreversible decisions. So, the plot of my life was upended to become a thing that I have no agency over. Sometimes on a quiet day, I have the time to think about what the alternate might have been and that could trigger some undefined sadness that I cannot create room for - it seems like an act of ingratitude towards the blessings I have had despite my missteps.
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