Day 4: Sadness

Today's BlogHer blog prompt:

"Who do you like to be with when you're feeling sad?"


There was a time when feeling sad meant I queued up my sad song playlist on iTunes, dimmed the lights, lit half a dozen candles and curled up in a comfy chair with a glass of wine and a box of tissues for an evening of letting whatever sadness was in my heart come pouring out of my eyes.  When I was exhausted and empty I'd make my way to bed, wrapping the covers close and drift off into a deep and generally very restful sleep.

When I was sad I preferred to be alone.

At some point this changed; there came a time when my sadness became something I could not longer just sit with.  Letting it out, instead of bringing relief, began to feel more like drowning and so I began to seek distraction from the sadness.  Most of the time this took the form of keeping myself busy.  I volunteered, worked, created, studied, hung out with friends did whatever I could to keep myself occupied enough to not think.  While I may not have faced what I was feeling, I certainly did get a whole lot accomplished.

So, who do I like to be with when I am feeling sad?  I am not sure I have found a person with whom I could allow my self to express my sadness in the way I did when I would sit in the dark and listen to music, but this does not mean that the people I seek out when I am feeling low or sad are simply another distraction, something to keep me busy enough to not think about what I am feeling.  The people I seek out when I am sad are people who I care for and in whose presence I find comfort enough to take the edge off what I am feeling.  Sometimes I just need to feel a little less alone, or I just need to talk and I am grateful for those people in my life who have been there for me. 

I miss the days of sitting by myself and letting my feeling wash over me, immersing myself in them, facing them and then letting them go.  I long for that time when sitting with my feelings was not so frightening or overwhelming and, well,  the truth is I'd really like to be able to once again say that the person who I like to be with when I am sad is myself.

(This post might make it seem like I am sad all of the time, I am not.  While the past couple of years of years have been a bit of a struggle I am generally in an okay place most of the time.)