Haibun: Sadness

Sometimes sadness will sit with me for a while. Throughout most days, I can be sad for a moment and it goes away because I was misjudging the situation. Sometimes I just wake up feeling a dull sadness that persists through the day.

But sometimes, I feel a long sadness, one that lasts for days. Often times, it is at the end of a relationship or a shift in a relationship, the breaking of trust or hurtful words. At one time in my life I ran away from it, rushing to apologize when I was wronged just to feel some sort of relief. All that would happen is I found myself back in that situation, setting up a cycle of worse and worse mistreatment. Each cycle the accusations and yelling getting worse.

I’m learning to just let it be like that one stem from the flower bush that sticks out above the rest at a neighbors house: it is better left alone than to go complain to them. I can see it, I can sense it, I know it’s there, but I will let it be trimmed back in a timeframe I don’t control.

Sadness dulls the pleasures that can’t overtake it. It always flattens lesser joys out, but it doesn’t kill things, it doesn’t hurt things. It’s only when I try to force sadness away that I hurt or kill things inside of me. But what I found, in time, when sadness leaves, she leaves a sweet fragrance behind when she can walk away on her own. When sadness isn’t forced away, nothing’s harmed or broken.

elevated pines

breathe life in the scorched summer

souls of the desert