Sadness, My Greatest Teacher
What do you do when you feel the sadness descending, when you know yourself and the sadness so well, but don’t want to be there again? It’s January and once again I feel it coming. Like a sore throat or a cold, I feel the ache when I swallow, but I am going against hope that I am not getting sick. And then, a few days later, I wake up and begin the day by crying after I hang up the telephone. A friend said something that hurt me and suddenly I am wracked with sobs and a feeling of the world being totally lost. Is it COVID, is it my friend? Am I tired? What am I missing? And then I realize, it’s January. This happens in January.
How could this possibly be the clue, the puzzle piece to the terrible sadness I feel inside me today. How can January be the answer for why my tears lie just below the surface of every conversation, and the hurt that overwhelms me with the smallest of slights? January?
I do not know how to make it different and I can no longer push my energy outward to make you feel ok. That is when the imperative of looking after myself becomes clear. I cannot look after your feelings right now, I cannot love you up, although I would wish it, because this sadness has caught me and clings to me this morning, these late days in January.
And I ask myself: How do I get through it? And it is simple. I get through. I give it space. I breathe. I allow myself to cry for no particular reason and for all the reasons in the world. COVID, isolation, past injuries, trauma, all the ways I judge myself to not be enough, all the ways I have disappointed others. The list is long, and it can sound incredibly stupid, but these feelings are real and I will allow myself to look at them, to give them space, to unpack them, to feel them and finally, release them.
Maybe all the giving and loving of caring of December leads into an exhaustion in January. Maybe there is not enough light, both literally and figuratively. Maybe it’s January. I won’t give too much time to the reason. I am sad. I feel the heaviness of the world descending on my heart. I feel too much right now and yet it will not help me to stop feeling.
How often have you heard others say "Stop feeling sad. You don’t have to feel sad."But what is so terrifying about sadness? I don’t love it, I don’t sit here today and think, “ya, this sadness is good for me.” But I know it has to move through me. I know it needs the space to be felt and experienced and unpacked. I know it is coming from somewhere and feeling so intensely sad in these days and weeks makes me understand some things I didn’t want to look at when I am sunny and cheerful.
And so I accept you, sadness. I look and say, ok, we are here again. But maybe we have never been here. Maybe this sadness is different and deeper and full of greater wisdom than the last round. Because I don’t know. I don’t know whether each time it gets better, or easier or more enlightening. I know it comes, I know I need to engage with you, sit with you, cry with you. I do know that this sadness deepens me. It brings me to a place of humility, of having to ask for help, for community, for listening.
Perhaps this is its greatest gift. To move the teacher into the student, to remind me that we are always in need of each other, that we were not meant to do life alone. Teach me darkness so I may learn, teach me how to do with another, to believe in community and to share my sadness as I share my joy.
Unsinkable Storytelling Author: Silken Laumann