Sadness, Whatever.
I can’t explain sad, I can only feel it. Can only wear it like an ugly sweater that won’t go away, and drink it like sour water, and feel it like a million bee stings to the heart.
I can only push it into a room and say, “this is sadness.” I cannot define it or make sense of it, cannot tell you what it is or how it got here. “Here” being in me, with me, around me. Sometimes sadness inches close and works hard to take it all. Claws an angry claw at smiles and laughter and appetite. Sandpaper violence to the soul, sadness wants everything. Snatches the life in us until it’s gone, gone, gone. Gobbles up all we love.
Sadness comes and the next thing you know, you’re in your room and on your bed not ever wanting to leave. Just wanting the lights to be off and for it to be night already. Just thinking that more alone time and more music and more money will make it better. Just believing the lie that more of anything will be the cure.
_____________
Sadness used to make me wonder where all the good went. (Lie #1) Probably to someone else. (Lie #2) Because maybe we only get so much good; maybe we only get so much happy. So when it all goes away, the happy that is, we learn to fake it. Vaseline to the teeth. Just wear the forever smile.
But those who can’t fake it, who don’t wear plastic smiles, they break because it’s all they know to do. I’ve broke nearly a hundred times. And though I can’t point to the reasons now- the reasons why my heart suffered unnecessary lashings- why it was black and full of closed rooms, I know it was real. But like I said, I can’t explain sad, I can only feel it.
Like a bloody knee after I’ve been conquered by the concrete.
Like an empty bank account.
Like a closet full of clothes we will never need.
Like a book without good sentences.
Like children without parents.
Like moving backwards.
Like death that comes too soon.
Like not being wanted.
Like being second best.
Like when God feels far, far, far. (Not in church, not in my bedroom, not in my Bible. Where did He go?)
I can feel it. Can’t you feel it too?
________________
But sadness is not for us. It’s not for wearing like a sweater, or for stitching a story on our sleeve.
Sadness is not for the children of Life.
Gladness though, and goodness too, they are for wearing and tasting and feeling. They are for dressing your heart in. Strong enough to tell the sadness and all the bad to find home elsewhere. Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Those things, those Spirit things, they’re strong enough for death alone.
I can’t explain sadness, I can only feel it /// I can explain good, I can even taste it.
