Melancholy

“Give sorrow words; the grief that does not speak knits up the o-er wrought heart and bids it break.”

― William Shakespeare, Macbeth

When I don't know something I research. I read articles and blogs. I search for quotes and sift through hundreds to find one or two that are perfectly describe the event I'm analyzing or the emotions I'm experiencing. 

I am writing because I feel that it is all I can do. I am sad today. I'm not depressed, just sad. The closest, most descriptive word I can find to describe what I am feeling is melancholy. I can be wildly exuberant and colorful one moment, then the next the clouds have slid over the sun that is my colorful personality.

I'll put it in my own words:

I feel as though there is something missing from inside me. I'm not sure what. Sometimes it's there but at other times it simply disappears. I am still just as determined as I was before. I get things done. But I feel a little empty. You could do something wonderful for me, and it might make it better, but likely no matter how much I appreciate what you've done or how much I love the thing you said I don't want to smile. I probably will, I don't want to hurt you above all. But it feels like by smiling I am betraying some deep part of myself that, within this moment, needs to be sad. This feeling lingers. It comes and goes as it pleases. Sometimes I can pin down the event that invited it in, but often I cannot. So I greatly appreciate Sylvia Plath when she writes "I didn't know why I was going to cry, but I knew that if anybody spoke to me or looked at me too closely the tears would fly out of my eyes and the sobs would fly out of the throat and I'd cry for a week.” 

I think often about my own emotional state, but voicing the words can bring on torrents of tears. (I despise tears. I should probably work on that) The result is: I have a profound understanding of my own self, but few others do. My sadness is often mistaken for coldness, a forced smile for dislike. 

Friends, family, and strangers have often told me I need to 'open up' or to 'not push others away'. They are probably right in that the perception of my melancholy likely makes me seem aloof or uncaring. What they do not see is how very much I care. What they don't recognize are the times I've put on the 'happy mask' just for them, because though I accept the sadness I possess, they do not. I still haven't found a way to make myself 'more open' or 'more approachable' without feeling self-betrayal and, sometimes, an even deeper sadness due to the disloyalty to that moments nature. Because there truly is a beauty in my melancholy.

So I write. To explore my thoughts, to make an attempt to be open with this ever demanding world.