Today I am sad.
No particular reason, or maybe a million reasons.
I am sitting in the brightest, sunniest room in the house, but the day reflects my mood. It is overcast and snowing. It feels good, that the weather reflects my mood. I hate sunny and beautiful days when I’m sad; it feels like a betrayal somehow.
I tried listening to my favorite inspirational playlist, but somehow I have ended up in a quicksand of old ballads and country tunes, each of which brings with it a fresh memory. It is like my phone anticipated my mood.
I know this moment is necessary. I have been struggling to keep the sadness at bay for months, to get on with my life, to keep moving forward. And you can only hold it off for so long before it catches up with you.
So today is that day. I have a long list of things I should be doing, but instead I am sitting here, listening to heart wrenching songs and mourning. Lost family, lost friends, missed dreams, worst fears and anything else I can dredge up to keep the tears flowing.
So today I am going to cry and be sad.
I will cry as much as I can. I will rage against life, time, loneliness, unfairness and all of the things that make me crazy sometimes. Because sometimes I need this. We all need this sometimes. Being sad and angry is necessary to my sanity and my happiness.
Because that is my secret.
No, not a dirty little secret that I hide away from the world. This is my secret to feeling better, not just pretending to.
I am a happy, optimistic person, and the secret to it, for me, is allowing the darkness in for a while. Just not for too long.
Soon I will feel drained and exhausted, like I have gone ten rounds or run a marathon. And then it will be time to wipe my eyes and shake this off. I will put the sadness away for a while.
Because there is so much more to feel good about in my life. I am incredibly lucky to have so many wonderful things and to have so much to be happy about. I am grateful and happy about the sum of my life. When I look at it as a whole I am so fortunate that it overwhelms me.
But that does not mean I cannot feel sad occasionally.
I will turn on my dancing music and turn it around. I will think of my dreams, my wins, and my aspirations, and remember all of the good stuff, the things I am grateful for. The flip side of my grief. And I will start to deal with my #$%^. I will tidy up, put in some laundry, exercise, anything to get moving and to move forward.
Each thing I accomplish and each positive thought will move me a little closer to where I want to be.
Then I will pick up my daughter from school, hug her hard and go home to make dinner and I will get on with my life. Because that is what I do. We will tackle a few chores, eat, and then tonight I will watch a really stupid comedy, and if I am really lucky I will laugh.
I will go to bed early and try to get a decent sleep because today I have descended into a valley and climbed a mountain.
And tomorrow I will start over, with a good day. Because I have given my grief, my sadness and my anger some room to breathe. Now I can put it away again for a while and get on with my life until it needs a walk again.
