My Sometimes Sadness

The way sadness works is one of the strange riddles of the world. If you are stricken with a sadness, you may feel as if you have been set aflame, not only because of the enormous pain, but also because your sadness may spread over your life, like smoke from an enormous fire.

– Lemony Snicket

Our society has such a bizarre connection with sadness. We all are very well versed in ALL things SAD, but it is something that is very rarely spoken about. We do everything we can to hide it, dismiss it, and run away from it. We are also very quick to discount it in others. It’s so easy to tell others to turn their frowns upside down, or to look on the bright side. Life isn’t that bad. NO need to be sad. Suck it up. Get over it. We are taught to conceal our sadness behind a mask of cheerful illusion because it makes others feel comfortable. Yet we don’t seem to care how that impacts ourselves. In this fast food society, we don’t have time to digest our feelings, and we are scared to give them a voice.

When our sadness persists, we are taught that there is something so very wrong with us. We have a plethora of medications to make it go away. Frenetically we try to shake it off like a wasp that stings. We want to strip our sadness from ours hearts like a filthy shirt that can be thrown into a washing machine. We have to scrub and scour until the stains come out and we are left untarnished, once again. We are taught that certain emotions are messy, insignificant, and disgraceful. And no matter how hard I try, I can’t bring myself to understand that.

Sadness is a basic human emotion. I don’t mean crippling depression or psychiatric disorder. I will be the first to say those are deeper issues that need guidance and treatment. However, just like happiness, or anger, or fear, sadness is a feeling. And repressing our feelings is much more dangerous than feeling them. Embracing our feelings is all a part of the journey, and the way we evolve and grow.

Sadness is simply part of being human, isn’t it?

I have a sometimes sadness. It’s a heaviness that I feel, for no obvious reason… Or all reasons… Or just sometimes reasons. I am not sure, I don’t know exactly where it stems from. I can’t always put my finger on it. Often, It comes and then it goes with no logical explanation. Starting as an ember, a slow-growing fire deep inside my belly; It makes my face flush and my breath shallow. And I wait for the melancholy to set in.

My Sometimes Sadness. Worn and familiar, like my favourite blanket, I invite him to wrap himself around me. He quickly makes himself at home. I have learned through many years of struggles, it is much easier to make him your friend than your foe. We go back a long way, him and I. We have walked many roads together. There is something oddly familiar about his visits, especially these days. I invite him to stay for tea. I don’t need to talk much, we can both sit in silence. We have an unspoken connection, and there really isn’t much to say, anyway. Thankfully, he doesn’t often outstay his welcome.

I just let him be, and he does the same for me.

Today, my Sometimes Sadness sits beside me, and keeps me company for a little while…

Until I let him go.

– Jolene 💜

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