Owning My Sadness

I doubt that anyone could express it better than Tom Stoppard did when he said that “…every story, made-up or otherwise…is secretly about time, the disinterested ongoingness of everything, the unconditional mutability that makes every life poignant.”

I can’t seem to set aside this awareness lately. I just feel a sinking kind of sadness so contrary to the upbeat stance for which I strive, a palpable sense of loss, past and pending.

I’m not depressed. It’s different from depression. It’s simply an open-eyed acknowledgment of the state of things, and my uncensored reaction.

Wise ones will tell you to greet such sadness, experience it without becoming it, own it without its owning you. I’m trying. But how powerfully it pulls me down!

It’s sneaky too. Above are objects on the bathroom counter that I see every day. Why then the distinct ache in my heart this morning triggered by the sight of them? For starters, the color–there’s something about that sea green color that transports me straight into the past, through my 1950s childhood and earlier yet. That pale green soap dish becomes a pathway leading right to my father in Buenos Aires on a long-ago day. And of course it’s an emotional arrival.

Such evocative artifacts are everywhere, and sometimes there is comfort in their solidity, things I can touch that still convey some aura of people I have loved, but the spell breaks quickly, and everyone leaves again. And I am too thin-skinned right now, too easily affected by whatever associations are unleashed.

I’m sad. I will not deny it or suppress it or even try to alter it. There’s plenty of reason too, personal and global. A dear friend died last week. We’re far from through the pandemic. My daughter and her husband and their brand new baby boy are a continent and an ocean away. We are in the midst of a great reckoning for the soul of our country. And the usual ghosts are here–I never do forget them. There’s a pervasive sense of loss and brokenness, and everything is poignant.

Yesterday I ran into Virginia, my seven-year-old best friend. She casually announced that she’s known lots of people who are dead. She was referring mainly to her great-grandparents, recently deceased and still within her memory span. She didn’t sound upset, just matter-of-fact, and I used the opportunity to tell her that the people we love are always in our hearts. (I think that’s true, one way or another.) Virginia also told me that she is reading Beezuz and Ramona, and that books can take you to another world, and it’s really cool, almost like magic, but some people don’t even know about it.

I could feel my sad-sack face brighten as Virginia informed me of these wondrous things. For a few minutes, her enthusiasm overrode my blues, and we were just two friends chatting in the sunshine on a summer afternoon. And I can’t wait to give her Charlotte’s Web––or is that book too sad?

Anyway, maybe my sadness will recede further with time and more glad tidings.

But for now, it’s a fact. I’m sad.