Making Friends with Melancholia

Wrestling with melancholy is a hopeless struggle (yes, a pun) i have come to find out. It is hopeless not in that it destroys all hope. Rather the struggle is hopeless in the sense that i will never be completely free of melancholy, that it will creep in when unexpected events crack open the entrance to my being and will sit where it wants, for as long as it wants.

 This morning i have decided to make friends with my melancholia. I have decided that on occasions i will invite her in and sit her down for a visit and some fresh, strong coffee and ginger snaps.

She is actually quite good company and always seems to bring old friends and family with her, folks whom i’ve not seen for awhile and who remind me that i am, as a composite of them, not alone.

Melancholia is something of a house cleaner too. She cleans the dirt from my eyes with her tears, uncorks the wax from my ears with a pen, sweeps resentments out of my heart with a gust of breath.

I welcome death into my heart too when she comes and i am reminded that time is a myth of mind, that i will make many transitions including the one that takes me out of this body.

So today, i say hola, bienvenida melancholia. Sit down and share some sweetness with me and tell me a sad story of mine.

Clique for...
Oh Melancolia de Silvio Rodriquez