Melancholy

Every few weeks I get a regular visitor named Melancholy. At first she slips in ever so subtly until I begin to feel her weight in my body.

I used to fight her presence, running from her or doing whatever it took to keep her from taking ahold of me. I didn’t like the way I felt when she was around.

No matter what I did, she held steadfast.

I eventually learned to open the door for her when she came knocking.

Through her heaviness she slows life down and quietens it. Her weight prods me to plumb the depth of my feelings and soul. To stop and listen and feel deeper. Like the moon, her tides pull me within.

She enriches me in those depths, sinking me deeper into myself. Soulful creativity emerges in a manner of expression — poetry, writing, art, and so forth.

She is the ocean and resisting the ocean is futile. Acceptance is letting her tides ebb and flow into and out of me, allowing her wake to bring gifts of deeper insight as it scrubs raw.

She is also life, the way it breathes in and out of you and the way it is full circle in all things whether you like them or not.

I remember to open the door on the other side so that she eventually leaves before bogging the soul down.

Like the exhale of a grateful, deep breath.