A Sadness So Deep

 How deep is sadness? So deep that is there a comparison to think of? I haven’t really allowed myself to feel sad. The other day I felt sad and I let myself feel sad. And it was a sadness so deep I didn’t know how big sadness could be.

As I sat there feeling the sadness, I wasn’t sure if I could even live through it.  That’s why I knew I had not let myself feel sad.  I had not allowed myself to feel the sadness or rather I didn't want to feel the sadness. 

After all this time has passed, I still haven’t felt sad, I haven’t allowed myself to.  I mean sure, there have been moments of sadness and sad things; but I somehow realized when I felt the big, deep sadness that I wasn’t sure if I could even live through it.

That’s why I didn’t want to feel the sadness of losing my husband. It was just too big.  As I sat there recently, allowing myself to feel the sadness, it felt as if it would overtake my entire body.  

My heart, my mind, and my soul were overcome, so of course it makes sense that I would push this experience from my reality.  It was just too big. And as I sat there in the sadness, I asked myself how big is this sadness? 

I thought about the great grandeur of the huge redwood trees in the redwood forest. Those trees are so big.  I asked myself, is my sadness bigger than that majestic giant tree? And the answer was yes my sadness is bigger than the redwood forest tree.  

I asked myself, is this sadness bigger than the redwood forest?  I thought about how grand and how vast the redwood forest is.  I thought of how many square miles of giant trees take up the space of that  forest.  The answer is yes.

This sadness is bigger than the redwood forest filled with all those giant majestic trees.  I thought what’s bigger than that? Is it bigger than the whole world? So I asked myself if my sadness was bigger than the whole world?  The answer again was yes. 

I asked myself, is my sadness bigger than the whole universe? And the answer was your sadness is as big as the universe. The universe has an ending and I thought to myself how can I live with the sadness this big? The answer came, I don’t have to live with it.

It’s there and it’s bigger than anything that I can imagine and that’s what it is. And that doesn’t mean that it will kill me. It doesn’t mean that it will take over my life. It doesn’t mean that it is who I am. 

It doesn’t mean it’s how I live or even something I have to live with or process or get used to or try to move through or move away from or get over. It doesn’t mean any of those things. It just means it exists.  

All this time I’ve been too afraid of it because I knew how big it would be.  I knew it was bigger than me and I didn’t want to feel it because I was afraid that it would become me. So as I let myself feel it in my whole body, I felt like it weighed 1,000,000 pounds.  

I couldn’t move and I couldn’t cry. I realized that all I had to do was acknowledge that it’s there. And because I felt it, I realized how big it was. It also taught me that I didn’t have to be the one in charge of it. I just needed a moment to acknowledge it and feel It.

I learned I don’t have to be afraid of it.  Now I know it won’t change me or take over my life or hurt me.  It’s just there and it’s bigger than me. It’s not something that I have to do anything with or get over or get rid of or move on from.

It’s just there and it just needed acknowledgment that I haven’t been able to give it for the last 3 1/2 years.  When I felt how big that sadness was, I felt how much bigger it was to me and how impossible it would be for me to do anything with it.  

The only thing I needed to do was give it acknowledgement.  Once I did that, I felt it was separate from me.  It was experienced by me, but not a part of me and who I am. And that’s when I realized that sadness doesn’t define a person. 

Sadness doesn’t define me but  sadness is an existence.  I don’t have to be afraid of feeling sad anymore.  Sadness won’t ruin my life, but sadness is a teacher for my life.  I want a teacher.  I realized that even with all the sadness that is there; there is also a place for anything that I want to feel and experience. 

That includes joy, aggression, excess depression, hard things, soft things and all the many things that life is filled with. I am not afraid of my sadness anymore. Now I realize how big it is and it’s OK.