Facing sadness.

We must build dikes of courage to hold back the flood of fear.

Martin Luther King, Jr.

As I sit here in the middle of the night with my usual cup of coffee, I do not want to say that I feel depressed, but I do feel an infinite amount of sadness.That is because I am now in mourning finally about Marianne's death, of course, but I think I am sad about some other things as well that I have been bravely, I thought, not facing up to. It is time to deal with all of them, because when you are infinitely sad about something big, you may as well tackle all the other issues also.

I can tell that my attitude has changed because when I am on Facebook, I do not get one bit excited about the optimistic and inspirational messages that are posted there. Now, as a rule I think they are overly sentimental, but now even the best ones do not really move me. I do not feel that I want to be optimistic and inspired at all right now. It is time for introspection, but of a very personal nature that can not be expressed by a cheerful statement on Facebook. 

This sadness that I feel is not a pleasant feeling, but I do feel that it is appropriate. I do not want to end it by raising up all sorts of barriers and pretending that there is nothing wrong and feel happy again. There really is a time and place for everything and now is the time to feel grief. I used to be afraid to feel sadness because I equated it with depression, but now I know that these things are two different modes of existence. 

I will take good care of myself and not allow myself to slide down some deep, dark hole that I can not climb out of. I expect positive things to come out of this process. It has to be a learning experience and one that will make me wiser. You do get wiser from feeling pain also.