I’m Still So Sad.

And I’m not even done yet.

I’ve lost so much since March.

We have all lost so much since March. It’s the only saving grace of this horrible time, none of this is personal. Everyone has lost something.

I lost my beloved business (TWO businesses), my theaters, travel, my restaurants, seeing my friends, my in-laws, and my precious niece.

And I lost lost my brother in July. He died. What a stupid time this is.

I’m not writing this to get sympathy, I’m more writing to give it.

Because I’m so, so, so sad still. I bet some of you are too. All of you maybe.

I’m normally a balanced person. I don’t risk much so I don't lose much. I like middle paths and have been walking them since I was a child. I know emotions don’t last more than 90 seconds (we all learned this when we quit smoking, right?) and I know that my emotions don’t make me what I am.

But I’ve been down for weeks, which is unlike me. I’ve been through downtimes, rough times, and hard times of course, but they made me angry. I know anger intimately, we’re good friends, but feeling down is new.

As I wept through the 14th day of unexpected tears (crying always surprises me), I tried to figure out what I was feeling and how I might get past it.

Once I figured out the emotion I was feeling was sadness, I felt immediately better. Sadness is easy. We all have sadness. Sadness doesn’t stick, it dissipates. It’s a 90-second emotion I had been feeling for weeks and just wasn’t used to it.

Now that I knew it was sadness, my next question was how to get rid of it.

I started moving my body, going on longer walks. I meditated more and tried to eat well considering my fantasies of shoving double Whoppers in my face. I did all the things I could think of to release the sadness.

Days passed and I woke up with the continued pit in my stomach and tears in my eyes. The sadness was still there despite all my best efforts. I asked myself “why can you not get rid of this sadness when you know what it’s doing to the rest of your life?”

And the answer came back clear as a goddamn Buddhist bell.

YOU’RE NOT DONE YET.

I almost started laughing out loud.

The answer to why I cannot get rid of my sadness is because I’m not freaking done yet.

I feel better.
Giving myself permission to be sad for more than two weeks is ok.
Giving myself permission to be sad about all that I’ve lost is ok. And all that you’ve lost too. We’re holding each other’s sadness too. It can be a lot.

Just feel it.

It’ll be done when it’s done. Like pie.

So you must not be frightened … if a sadness rises up before you larger than any you have ever seen; if a restiveness, like light and cloud-shadows, passes over your hands and over all you do. You must think that something is happening with you, that life has not forgotten you, that it holds you in its hand; it will not let you fall.

— Rainer Maria Rilke