Melancholy (draft v.2) (2)

This is a piece I don't think I'll finish (at least for a while) because it involved a feeling I don't have vivid memories of anymore.

Anyway, it's called Melancholy, and it's just something I had tumbling around in my archives. Enjoy :D

Melancholy

I like melancholy. It’s definitely sadness, but it has a note of happiness. Not current happiness, but the faint sweet notes of a past happy that I enjoyed so much. It’s a pleasant feeling to me, melancholy is. It’s not the sickly sweet happiness of love, but it’s not the bitter, brooding taste of regret or depression.

The happiness in melancholy doesn’t come from missing the good times or opportunities, it comes from preserving them. It comes from closing a chapter and everything in it, watching myself grow. In all honesty, that chapter was already written and edited, but now I’ve accepted it, assigned it page numbers, and put it on the shelf until I want it again.

I revel in growth. To me, there is no point in living besides to grow. I love the journey of life and its soft warmth as it guides me through my story. Yet, once I meet my definite end, I will never be able to look back, so I look back now as it bleeds muted joy from its vibrant memories—it feels as if it’s the end of a book, when the whole plot has finally been laid out.

It’s nonetheless a raw type of happiness, the type that is embodied not by a warm yellow, but by a whitish blue. It’s cathartic when I let go of the emotional baggage and feel the pain drain out. It feels tingly and involuntary, like someone is forcibly pulling my history out of a long vein that runs too close to sensitive nerve endings for comfort. It’s cold—where the story I lived stares directly into my eyes a bit too intently and dares me to acknowledge its existence.

At the same time, it’s sorrow and yearning—sorrow for the past, the memories, and losing a part of myself, and yearning for a time I understood myself better. I know I’ll forget things as I move on and keep writing my story—I’ll lose the person I used to be to time. I’m acutely aware that a part of me stands there smiling as it inevitably disintegrates, that I have no choice but to keep walking away even though I wouldn’t be where I am without it.

Maybe I like melancholy because despite the pain it brings, it’s a state of mind that requires change—I must grow. It’s not a purely sad place—I refine myself and realize who I am. It’s the point at which I realize the good memories of the past are truly past and understand that I’ll move on. Melancholy is a soft, empathetic sadness that tells me that I’m doing a good job as a person, and I am faithfully fulfilling my commitment to grow. The point at which I find myself crying but closing a chapter and moving on stronger—that is melancholy to me.