sadness is my best friend
Sadness is my best friend. All of my favorite and worst memories are soaked in sadness. It's as if I’ve been standing in a torrential downpour of rain my entire life; yet somehow to everyone else I look dry.
I used to be ashamed of my best friend (sadness). I used to want to hide her because the world didn’t think she was very cool and I knew that if I was seen with her then, by association, I wouldn’t be very cool either. So, like any people-pleaser would do - I shoved her far back in the closet. I only let her come out to play with those I trust most. My husband has hung out with her more than anyone else - something I've felt shame around. The one person in the world who should get the best of me has been stuck in my sadness.
But, something my husband said to me on my 31st birthday celebration, after eating a handful of magic mushrooms, gave me the compassion I had been searching for.
My husband grew up with a Type-1 diabetic mother. When he was 19-years-old she passed away from cancer. I never met her, but I feel like I know her through my husband's grief. We talk about her when we see rainbows after the rain, when a cardinal appears in our backyard with divine timing, when we look into our daughter’s eyes, and when we take mushrooms together.
In our Airbnb, we had been lying nestled together with our bodies tangled in the sheets of our top bunk's cozy bed listening to Fred Again's piano set as the sun went from blasting through the round porthole window to setting and casting a shimmery glow of fiery orange and desaturated blue hues on the vaulted ceiling. The perfect combination of the overlapping low and high notes on the piano were allowing our emotions to bubble up with wonder and awe for life, our life. Suddenly, my husband mentioned that he resented his grandfather for saying that his dad was only with his mother for financial gain and wealth. He recalled the times that his dad would have to rush his mom to the hospital, or the times her blood sugar would spike and she would become uncontrollable with emotion, or the times when her insulin dropped so low she lay sprawled across the floor completely paralyzed, immobile.
I could tell witnessing this as a kid was more traumatizing than he had ever let on prior.
Then, he said one simple thing, “My Dad loved my Mom beyond her illness.”
And, it was in those words that I realized my husband also loved me beyond my illness. The love story he witnessed as a child was unconsciously playing out in the depth of love he shows me. My heart burst open with unimaginable gratitude as we both welcomed the tears that flowed down our cheeks and seeped into the wrinkles of our lips when they touched as we kissed. The taste of sweetness. We soaked in each other's warmth.
In his words, I found the inner strength I needed to love myself within and beyond my sadness. If I didn’t love my sadness... Then, how could I possibly love myself? Sadness is my best friend, but I don’t want to hide her anymore. I want to embrace her with the same tenderness my husband embraces me with when he wipes away my tears. I want to embrace her with the same safety my husband gives me when he blankets me in his arms, so that I know I am never going to fall too far down. I want to embrace her with gentleness and the soothing nature of a whisper...
It’s okay to be you because I just want to be me.