“Man could not live if he were entirely impervious to sadness. Many sorrows can be endured only by being embraced, and the pleasure taken in them naturally has a somewhat melancholy character.” ~ Emile Durkheim
I’m melancholy tonight… I don’t entirely know what that’s about, but I’ve decided, mainly because I have the time and the space, to just go with it.
When I was in high school, I had a few girlfriends with whom I would, several times a year, watch back-to-back-to-back the triumvirate of ‘80’s depression – Beaches, Steel Magnolias, and Terms of Endearments.
We would prepare for it – lay in the comfort food; make sure there were plenty of blankets, pillows, and tissues… and then we’d open up the flood gates and wallow in the beauty of despair… we’d sniffle, weep, sob, gnash our teeth, rent our hair – and really have a FABULOUS time…
I always felt wrung out, and gloriously empty and… free… as if I my angsty teenage life had been exorcised and I was a clean slate…
Totally
Of course, being a teenage girl practically comes with a license to be emotionally decadent…
But maybe we all need to be a little more uninhibitedly self-indulgent with our feelings.. or at least, allow ourselves to fully feel our feelings.
Buddhist author Sylvia Boorstein teaches, “Mindfulness is the aware, balanced acceptance of the present experience. It isn’t more complicated that that. It is opening to or receiving the present moment, pleasant or unpleasant, just as it is, without either clinging to it or rejecting it.”
Being with ourselves exactly where we are is critical to our growth as human beings…
So if you’ll excuse me, I have some movies to watch… ; )
“Emotions are celebrated and repressed, analyzed and medicated, adored and ignored — but rarely, if ever, are they honored.” ~ Karla McLaren