what not to do with your sadness
tips & tricks on just getting over it
this week’s Thought (singular)
had several many coherent thoughts, can’t pick just the one this week
a very warm welcome to all new readers. i love new readers so much that whenever i get an email about a new reader, i manifest that their water bottles remain intact. thank you for joining us. may you not accidentally drop a full bottle just when you enter your room, breaking the cap and effectively rendering the thing unusable. do i have to buy another bottle now.
a very warm welcome to old readers as well. may good sense continue to prevail.
Before We Begin
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i had written a piece somewhat similar to the one below about a year ago, titled how to slow down time (a list for dummies). read it here.
hi
remember last week when i made all those morose and dramatic remarks about not getting something that i had really wanted? that happened again with a different thing (i am quickly getting tired of these character-developing experiences), so this is a very self-serving and metaphorical piece on dealing with disappointment.
don’t cradle your sadness like a baby, showing it off to anybody who catches so much as a whimper of it. don’t wipe it, or coo at it, or clap when it successfully rolls over. it is not so fragile that it cannot be set down to walk next to you, and eventually slink off on its own.
don’t use your sadness to coat your body, making it an aura that surrounds your form, buffers all your interactions with people, and blocks the world from touching your skin. don’t let it entice you into spending all your time in your room so it can monopolise your attention and stop you from getting sidetracked.
don’t tend to your sadness like a fire to be kindled, but don’t pour gasoline over it in a mistaken effort to put it out either. find a suitable gust of wind, or let it finish burning all the wood. you don’t have to stay and keep watch.
don’t feel like there is a cartoonishly large and blinking arrow that floats above you, pointing straight at your crown, blaring ‘SAD SAD SAD SAD SAD’ when anybody faces your general direction. the arrow only exists in your head, and the lights will run out of battery eventually.
don’t give your sadness any sitting space in your mind. welcome it cordially and see it off gladly after it realises that all the chairs are occupied by trinkets shinier than itself. every time it returns to its temporary home in your heart, it pierces shallower on perpendicular re-entry.
don’t permit your sadness to have its best friends – insecurity, self-pity, self-flagellation, resentment, and regret – over. individually, they’re a menace, but together, they’re menacing enough to form roots. don’t let sadness form roots. there are better things blooming.
don’t stop your sadness from making you cry when the hollow ache in the space between your chest and your stomach throbs with a violence that makes breathing seem impossible. don’t blame your sadness for being unpredictable. it will come and go as it pleases at its convenience and your inconvenience, and all you can do is brace yourself for the impact. don’t stop your sadness from briefly weighing you down on its abrupt return, back suddenly hurting and heart immediately weary, and remember to gather your bearings to lift it up.
don’t forestall your sadness’s exit when it is ready. don’t try to drag it backwards through the threshold when it’s tying its shoelaces because you are scared of the emptiness it will leave behind. your regular occupants are hiding beneath the furniture and are eagerly waiting to resurface. allow their return with gratitude and grace. let your sadness go.
one day, i’d like to write about wanting – about all of its loveliness and ugliness, about its necessity and pain. about how you can try to force yourself to stop longing for something but it’s a claw that draws more blood the harder you tug at it, and about how it serves as a potent reminder that you live, hope, and care.
ps: i don’t think i said this last week, so happy august :D
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A Picture!
English Recitation Competition
Priceless Gifts, Anna Swir
An empty day without events. And that is why it grew immense as space. And suddenly happiness of being entered me. I heard in my heartbeat the birth of time and each instant of life one after the other came rushing in like priceless gifts.
Grace, Alice Walker
Gives me a day too beautiful I had thought to stay indoors & yet washing my dishes straightening my shelves finally throwing out the wilted onions shrunken garlic cloves I discover I am happy to be inside looking out. This, I think, is wealth. Just this choosing of how a beautiful day is spent.
[A rose has thorns as well as honey,], Christina Rossetti
A rose has thorns as well as honey, I’ll not have her for love or money; An iris grows so straight and fine, That she shall be no friend of mine; Snowdrops like the snow would chill me; Nightshade would caress and kill me; Crocus like a spear would fright me; Dragon’s-mouth might bark or bite me; Convolvulus but blooms to die; A wind-flower suggests a sigh; Love-lies-bleeding makes me sad; And poppy-juice would drive me mad:— But give me holly, bold and jolly, Honest, prickly, shining holly; Pluck me holly leaf and berry For the day when I make merry.
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this week’s Song
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thank you for reading, and see you next week <3