That Familiar Sadness
Hello you.
I can’t say you’re comforting, but you’re at least familiar.
Sadness.
You show up at odd times. Sometimes, it’s the downtime. Sometimes, it’s the downtime after a fun time. Brief glimpses of life as it should be lead to a realization of what is not, and thus the sadness walks back in.
Sadness appears after the wine, after the social hours, after the lack of expected connection. It shows up when you’re left to your thoughts and left to yourself. The lack of stimulation seems to awaken it.
It shows up after a trip to Facebook-land. It shows up after images of people living their dreams and enjoying their lives. It reveals that sense of “something is missing,” and “something is not as it should be.” It accompanies life.
I do not hate sadness. Once, I would have run from it. I would have tried to drown it, distract from it. Today, I sit in it. I am not at the point of welcoming it, but I know it and I am no longer afraid of it. It is there, and that is fine. I can live with sadness.
Sadness is awakened by the break from routine. You see things with fresh perspective, and you realize that you do not have what you want. Or worse, you don’t know what you want. You feel unease, as if you’ve missed something. As if, that thing you wanted will never come back. Sadness is being so close to what you want, yet being unable to touch it, to have it, to keep it.
Sadness drives us into addiction. Addiction does not fix the situation, it worsens it. Wisdom compels us to avoid the addictions we pursue to battle the sadness. Addiction is battling sadness on its own terms. Choosing to refuse addiction is a power-play. It makes sadness play on your terms. You will not be moved by sadness. It can camp out, sit on the couch with you, sit at the empty dinner table, but you won’t let it twist your arm behind your back. You resist — not the presence of sadness, but the effect. The response.
If the world was as it should be, there would be no sadness. One day, we will be without sadness. We’re not there yet. I can outlast sadness, I can live with it as my companion until it is destroyed, much like death itself. The sadness that walks with me is a companion, but not a forever one. It may follow me into bed, perhaps it sleeps with me, but I will one day wake up to its absence. I hold to this hope. Sadness is a temporary condition; it does not have the final word. Sadness, you are okay to stay by me, because your life is short, and I will outlast you. Your presence reminds me of a day when you will no longer be there, a day that is coming, bar nothing. Go ahead. Remind me of that day.
Sadness does not so much sting as it croons softly. Its singsong lullaby is entrancing, but many things can change its tune and drown out its voice. The aim is to listen to its lyrics when helpful, and change the inputs when it is not. To know when to redirect attention is the hard part. Sadness is important. It tells us things we would not otherwise know. Yet it is not all-important. It can inform, but let it not define. It can speak, but let it not control. Sadness has a place in the council of emotions, but it is not their sole voice. In the pantheon of emotions, it is a queen, but only one such queen. The zeal and exuberance of joy overwhelms its soft-spoken counterpart, and joy is often a more common companion, at least, at times.
Sadness is simple. It speaks of a longing unfulfilled. It helps one know that there is something missing, even perhaps what is missing. In so doing, it plays a vital role. The beauty of such light, however dim, is that it shines into the soul and informs the mind. Sadness is a gentle companion, sometimes it is violent, but it is never abusive. Even its violence is tender, its strength is soft. Stillness oft accompanies sadness, just as stillness oft accompanies peace. Sadness may be the first direction, the minor key that resolves into the major. It is not forever.
Sadness adds a depth of beauty and color that would not otherwise exist. Without that rainbow spectrum, one wouldn’t think so much or feel with such intelligence. Sadness informs, even if about our bruises, our pains, our hurts. Those hurts left untended, ungrieved are unsafe: perhaps festering, perhaps remaining bruised. Sadness can be a balm that heals. Mourning and grief take their toll, yet leave once the debt is paid. Sadness is the unsung hero of the emotions. It wakes us up to where we are, where we want to be, and why that matters.
Okay sadness, stay a while. You will not be forever, I will outlast you. Make yourself useful while you attend me. I do not despise you nor do I hate you; perhaps in time I will learn to welcome you. Your presence is prickly, yet gentle, is uncomfortable, yet familiar. There are worse things.
In a way, settling into an existence with sadness, as an occasional yet not forever companion, makes things okay. I don’t require sadness to leave, nor to stay, but it may show its visage on my face and when it does, and I will attend it. For now. It will not be here much longer. What are decades, to eternity?
Do your work, sadness. Your best work. I will welcome the good and work with that. In the end, sadness will collapse in on itself, like a black hole, except unlike a black hole, the event horizon shrinks, and shrinks, and shrinks, until it winks out of existence forever.
