I find there’s productivity in feeling sadness. For the last couple of weeks, as one event after another unfolded itself around me, I’ve been almost too busy to process the recent changes and losses in my life. I’ve shed tears very sparingly, not allowing myself to sit in the sadness for too long before moving on to the next activity that necessitated my attention.
Isn’t it silly how we tend to associate tears with weakness? Why is distracting ourselves from feeling considered the brave thing to do? Why can’t tears also be an act of bravery? An outward indication that instead of running from our sadness, instead of pretending that it doesn’t exist, we are allowing ourselves to feel vulnerable, and are mustering the courage to share this vulnerability with others?
I’m not a vulnerable person. I’m controlled and calculated almost 100% of the time. I am the rock my friends turn to in times of distress, I am the voice of reason to almost everyone I talk to, even strangers in passing who engage me in brief bouts of conversation. I find the experience of emotional extremes exhausting, which is why I’m largely an apathetic person; whether happiness, sadness, anger, excitement, or otherwise, I don’t venture far and wide across the emotional spectrum.
But now that I’m here, alone in my room, I’ve decided to allow myself this rare opportunity to process the melancholy that has sit quietly yet persistently in the back of my thoughts for weeks. I’m just tired of dreaming every night about conversations that have never happened, only to wake up every morning with the annoying reminder that my situation remains unchanged, that the words we exchanged were only inventions of my subconscious.
So tonight, here, in this empty apartment, I’m just going to lie in bed and write and reflect and think about you, wherever you are, and wonder if you are also lying and reflecting and thinking about me.