What does sadness feel like? We all must have some idea of what sadness feels like... but it's rather subjective, isn't it? It might feel like an elephant sitting on your chest, forcing all the air out of your lungs and confining you to one position, unable to move. Or it might feel like you're sinking deeper and deeper in quicksand until you're completely submerged, slowly and quickly realizing your own death is inevitable. On the other hand, it might feel a tad bit like anger, tempting your hands to fly twisted up into fists, powered by the hot steam gathering under your collar. But then again, it could all be summed up by a position, a simple way you arrange your body, elbows sat hard upon a table and your hands covering your eyes from something you don't want to deal with, acting as a prop for your lead filled cranium so it doesn't fall to the surface and burst into shards of glass.
What does sadness look like? All sorts of things, but several are rather universal. Red, puffy eyes. Flushed cheeks. An anger, confusion, frustration, and vexation all boiling beneath the surface. Downcast eyes, the look of utter defeat. Sadness really is the emotion felt when you feel defeated, isn't it? Defeated in love, in life, in your passionate pursuits of art, or even defeated at being human. Being human, it sounds so simple, yet it can be so complicated.
What does sadness smell like? A little like embarrassment, a bit like dirt (because that is where you felt you were flung, into the dirt, on the curb, into the garbage dump like something worthless), and whole lot like shame. It smells like the pillow you buried your face in, or the kleenex you blew your nose into. It smells like skin against skin as your hand wipes the tears from your own eyes, and quite a bit like chocolate (if you're a girl, like I am).
But from the wreckage of sadness, a terrible, flaming, wretched phoenix can emerge. Wings aflame, face twisted in fury, wishing to spew its hot wrath upon a world that never appreciated it. This terrible thing can really light a fire upon the tinder, it can wipe away the tears and replace it with fervor, an intense urge to change something. What was it that tried to push you down and bury you under its holier than thou attitude? With its snide remarks, with its verbal abuse, with its condescending, unfeeling, stinging insults. This phoenix assists you in gathering up all those awful stones that have been hurled, package them up neatly, and design a plan to plop them in the lap of those that have wronged you. Why is this good? Empathy. That person, persons, organization, group of assholes, or thing that crushed you down with all their weight, will in turn feel that heavy burden in their own lap, crushing and bruising. They will then feel what you felt, and in turn, they may change their ways.
Either way, you have won. You took the defeated feeling and turned it into energy, you avenged yourself and your feelings because you are important. Don't let anyone tell you different. You're important, you're words are worth hearing, and even if what you add to society is small, you work on the side of good. Of positivity.
Keep striving towards your goals. Always become the phoenix, so your fire flanked wings can swing up and knock down anything looking to keep you under its heel. Burn away the fear, watch it fall down as ash to your feet. Rip down the self-doubt, rip it to smithereens and throw it to the wind. Most importantly of all, always remember that with each round of sadness dealt, you become that much stronger than the offending party. Don't be afraid of sadness. In the end, it makes you who you are, and adds that much more realism to your art.
-Erin M. Truesdale, June 7, 2013
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