The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows

by John Koenig

world pours in, and a world spills out. For a few seconds, you can peek through into a vault that contains everything they are. Catching a glimpse of their vulnerability, their pain, their humor, their vitality, their power over others, and what they demand of themselves. But whether the eyes are the windows of the soul or the doors of perception, it doesn’t really matter: you’re still standing on the outside of the house. Eye contact isn’t really contact at all. It’s only ever a glance—a near-miss—that you can only feel as it slips past you. There’s so much that we keep in the back room; so much that other people never get to see. We only ever offer up a sample of who we are, of what we think people want us to be. And yet, how rarely do we stop to look inside, let our eyes adjust, and try to see what’s really there, the worlds hidden away in the eyes of others. You too are peering out from behind your own door. You put yourself out there, trying to decide how much of the world to let in. It’s all too easy for others to size you up and carry on their way. They can see you more clearly than you ever could. Yours is the only vault you can’t see into, that you can’t size up in an instant. You’ll always have to wonder

if someone might come along and peer into your soul. Or if anyone out there will put in the effort, trying to find the key.

We’re all just exchanging glances, trying to tell each other who we are. Trying to catch a glimpse of ourselves, feeling around in the darkness. ...

bye-over

the sheepish casual vibe between two people who’ve shared an emotional farewell but then unexpectedly have a little extra time together, wordlessly agreeing to pretend that they’ve already moved on.

skidding v. intr. the practice of making offhand comments that sound sarcastic but are actually sincere and deeply felt. From skidding, going farther than intended

fardle-din n. a long-overdue argument that shakes up a relationship, burning wildly through your issues like a forest fire, which clears out your dry and hollow grievances and reminds you that your roots run deeper than you think.

amoransia n. the melodramatic thrill of unrequited love; the longing to pine for someone you can never have, wallowing in devotion to some impossible person who could give your life meaning by their very absence. Portuguese amor,

You never know how many things had to happen exactly right for you to meet the one you love. You never know how easily fate might have tipped you onto some other course, meeting some stranger, who might have felt like a soulmate. As you sit there on your commuter train, wrapped up in your own concerns, you have no way of knowing how close you’re sitting to the person you might have loved, who you might have spent years with, even built a family. You would have looked across the room at this same face, and struggled to imagine life without them, telling yourself that it was always meant to be. As if you had known all along that your paths would cross eventually.

Maybe you were always destined to be sitting right where you’re sitting. Or

maybe it’s a miracle that you managed to meet the people you did, knowing how many obstacles might have gotten in the way. Or maybe it’s nothing personal, and it...

waldosia n. a condition in which you keep scanning faces in a crowd looking for a specific person who would have no reason to be there, as if your brain is checking to see whether they’re still in your life, subconsciously patting its emotional pockets before it leaves for the day.

lackout n. the sudden awareness that you’re finally over someone, noticing that the same voice that once triggered a cocktail of emotions now evokes nothing at all—as if your brain had returned the last box of their things and your heart had quietly changed its locks.

going, comparing

None of us knows the full picture of what’s really going on. All we know for sure is that some mysterious force is working behind the scenes to keep our communities intact and our relationships running—sometimes smoothly, sometimes not. But we all sleep a little better, knowing some sort of conspiracy is afoot. Otherwise we’d be tossing and turning all night, haunted by the notion that we’re all just acting alone. From amity, friendship + conspiracy, a collective plot to secretly pursue a sinister goal. Pronounced “am-uh-see.” dead reckoning v. intr. finding yourself bothered by somebody’s death more than you would have expected, even if they were only an abstract presence in your life, like a lighthouse in the distance that suddenly goes dark, leaving you with one less landmark to navigate by. In navigation, dead reckoning is the practice of using your prior course to extrapolate your subsequent position. It can be useful on starless nights but often leads to cumulative

attriage n. the state of having lost all control over how you feel about someone—not even trying to quench the flames anymore, but lighting other fires around your head just hoping to contain the damage.

mauerbauertraurigkeit n. the inexplicable urge to push people away, even close friends whose company you generally enjoy—like a poker player who keeps folding a promising hand in order to avoid the pain of losing, or tamp down the urge

only we hear the whiny pathos in a dog’s yawn,

whether you’re bizarrely normal or normally bizarre.

Its rhythms are encoded in your heartbeat, its music embedded in the sound of your

None of us really knows what is happening, what we’re doing, where we’re going, or why. Still we carry on, doing what we can to get through it. Even the roar of the city can sometimes feel like a cry for help.

can shut out the darkness for a little while, and offer each other the luxury of thinking that little things matter a great deal.

We know it’s all so silly and meaningless, and yet we’re still here, holding our breath together, waiting to see what happens next. And tomorrow, we’ll put ourselves out there and do it all again. The show must go on.

latrina n. the meditative atmosphere of being alone in a bathroom, sequestered inside your own little isolation booth, enjoying a moment backstage from the razzle-dazzle of public life.

Each of us is only ever a work in progress; we all have weaknesses we’re not sure how

tillid adj. humbled by how readily you place your life into the hands of random strangers, often without a second thought—trusting a restaurant to check its expiration dates, trusting a construction crew not to cheap out on materials, trusting thousands of other drivers to stay in their lane—people who you may never meet but whose well-being you’re deeply invested in, whether you know it or not. Danish tillid, trust. Pronounced “til-id.” momophobia n. the fear of speaking off the cuff or from the heart; the terror of saying the wrong thing and having to watch someone’s smile fade as they realize you’re not who they thought you were. Ancient Greek μῶμος (momos), blemish, disgrace + -φοβία (-phobía), fear. Momus was the Ancient Greek god of mockery and harsh criticism. Pronounced “moh-muh-foh-bee-uh.” siso n. a solitary experience you wish you could have shared with someone else—having

ledsome adj. feeling lonely in a crowd; drifting along in a sea of anonymous faces but unable to communicate with or confide in any of them.

Indifference is easy. It takes a lot of courage to fight back against it. So maybe we should stop and count ourselves lucky that there’s still someone out there, fighting the good fight.

aftergloom n. the pang of loneliness you feel the day after an intensely social event, as the glow of voices and laughter fades into a somber quiet. From afterglow + gloom. hobsmacked adj. suddenly aware of how limited your social circles really are; that although your immediate environment feels like a microcosm of society, it’s more like a bag of exotic fish floating on the surface of a huge aquarium, which is teeming with a million shadowy subcultures that you’d be stunned to see up close. From hobnob, to mix socially + gobsmacked, astounded. anthrodynia n. a state of exhaustion with how cruel people can be, freely undercutting each other in ways that seem petty and gratuitous—which can sometimes

Strange that no matter how predictable your life is, nobody in history has ever lived it before. Strange to think that your concerns are your business and yours alone.

innity n. the complicated solitude of hotel rooms late at night, spending time in a place that’s both yours and emphatically not yours, both soulless and homey, both timeless and temporary, suspended somewhere halfway between vacancy and no vacancy.