An Ode to Sadness

I walk my beautiful baby girl in the scorching tuscan heat and I see people drive, walk, glide by and they know where they’re going. They have a place in this city. People wait for them to arrive, they miss them. I understand now that for me nowhere is home. Not the place I was born, not the place I grew up, not the places I’ve chosen along the way. I’ve seen as much as I could of this world and in its vastness I lost an identity I never had, one I thought I could go back to yet wasn’t surprised I couldn’t find.

I can’t say that this is where I expected to be passed the age of thirty. Hanging by a thread, a frail rusty one at that. Some days are good. Some days accumulate and turn into months and those are good too. Yet good is not something that ever seems to stay very long. I used to enjoy its presence however now I’m skeptical and misstrusting. Is it real or am I delusional? Most times, to my missfortune, the latter is correct.

Could it be that I wasn’t built for this world? If I am and this is not just a selfish essay but a relatable tale then why is it that happiness is an essential good which is always just far away enough that you can convince yourself you can grasp but never quite touch? I admit, I’m tired. I’m exhausted. If it is to always be this way then I can’t see myself mustering the courage to make it through to the “end”.

I walk by and I see people, strangers, I envision their lives and I project the joy I wish I had on to the them because someone must feel it. Someone must have it. I’ve seen sadness, I’ve seen people discouraged, I know that others can feel like I do this night. I know however, that as much as they may dispair in their suffering, that life and love are waiting for them somewhere around the next corner. I just can’t see the same for myself.

I’m missing a love I never had. A future that was never mine. Delusional, I know. Even though hard times are a desert I navigate confidently after years of forced practise I still find the sense of isolation to be increasingly harder to handle. Sometimes it takes months in a slumbered state awaiting the unreliable “good” before it arrives. Knowing it will eventually come but never for how long. It never approaches guaranteeing a sense of relief and peace but rather of worry and apprehension. The next time it arrives, will I dock or will I just continue on the journey in this perpetual state of bad which is at least predictable?

Families and children at the park laugh. They live out the heat and await to return to a cooler home, one that they know is there and is missing them. They know who they are. I envy them while feeling relief that at least they have it. They have love. They have life. I have forgotten the meaning. Soon I’ll forget what they look like. Maybe then, in distorted fashion, I may find peace.