I officiated a wedding recently, and it always requires me to reflect on my own life and experience with life. Let me start by saying I am not unhappy with the life I lead, at least not more than one would expect living in a Corporate capitalist society, right?

To distract from the nervousness I feel about officiating weddings, I will unerringly start to reflect on my own failed marriage, and all the failed relationships I have been in — and those that I wished I had been in. It inevitably leaves me with pain and sadness. Even though the relationship I am in is the best I have ever had.

This, in turn, leads to listening to sad songs and/or watching sad movies or TV. This time it led me to watching an episode of The Orville, “Lasting Impressions,” in which Gordon falls in love with a simulation he created from a cell phone left in a time capsule.

There are spoilers forthcoming. It is necessary to illustrate what I am feeling at this time. I recommend either 1) go watch the episode, or 2) stop reading now. 🙂

I don’t have a ton of capacity to stop myself from feeling emotions – I never really have. They come, I experience them as near 100% as I can, and then they go. Sometimes, I really don’t want to experience them, but here comes the E-Train any way, so I get to choose to be run over or get off the tracks. Most often, its the former, as I struggle with depression.

But sometimes, once in a while, y’all get the privilege of seeing what I am feeling on the page as I record it for posterity. The words just come out and I can stop them or write them down. I am told it is good for me to do this, and I do when I can manage to get off the tracks early enough to sit and watch the train go by more relaxed. Here is that vision.

I started singing along to a song that I really like and I could hear the train a comin’ ’round the bend. I stopped working on the wedding script and just listened for a moment, enjoying the beauty in his voice, the simplicity of the music.

I began to cry.

I realized, that I wasn’t going to get any more done for the moment until I processed these emotions, so I went full on into them. I pulled up the Episode of the Orville I mentioned and watched it all the way through.

More crying.

I found the video of just the song that someone had cut together from the earlier and later performances in the show so that I could just get lost in it for a moment. I recommend you do the same. I’ll wait.

NOTE: I managed to NOT watch The Last Unicorn after this, which I think is a personal accomplishment.

So, there I was, no longer crying, but completely full of feels. I was not doing anything; I was fully into that moment of doing nothing but hearing, seeing, feeling everything that was going on.

Although I was sad, I was also at peace, which is a rare thing. I found myself smiling.

And then I remembered the most important moment from the show and decided to share that with you.

“People have been living and dying for as long as humans have existed. Most are forgotten. But not this one. This one reached across four centuries and made a guy fall in love.

We should all be so rare.”

Commander Grayson, The Orville, “Lasting Impressions”

I don’t expect anyone to understand why it meant so much to me, as it was my moment. My enlightenment, as it were. But for that moment, I was ok. For just a moment.

I believe we are all capable of this peace, but it may require learning to see the train coming, jumping off the tracks, and just enjoying the rush of feeling as it zooms by. That is what therapy (and medications) can help with.

Everyone is different in how they get to peace, but we are all capable of it if we can get help. I did, and I am slowly coming back from the edge.

I hope this sparks something good in everyone that managed to read this far.

Anyway, I love you. That’s all I have to tell you.

Walking the Path,

Chris