Come, Dance in Joy and Sit with Sorrow

How is it September? In just two weeks I get to marry my sweet man! 2024 has been a full year—for me, a mostly happy year. A quiet year on my blog and in my journal. I'm often too busy or tired to reflect. . .or too happy to write from the depths of my soul. Too happy? Shouldn't our great joys be just as deep as (or deeper than) our great pain?

Recently I've thought that perhaps there are so many sad songs because sorrow is achingly personal. Sadness is so raw that we must process it in writing, in poetry, in song. And our happiness is much more 'in the moment'—to be lived here and now. The immediacy of our delight and wonder is what makes it (in part) so wonderful. It's not something we sit around pondering, it's something we live. It's what makes all those memories we treasure and ponder over when we've lost something or someone. 

But the truth remains that I resonate with sad songs much more than with happy ones. In fact, I prefer sad songs and minor chords. One of my friends once told me they had experienced too much trauma and sadness to listen to sad songs... And my response was, I've experienced enough loss, sorrow, and abandonment to know how deeply I need sad songs. 

You don't write the blues because you've lived a cheery life. Writing, playing, or just listening to music is one of the best ways to process our emotions. Swelling joy, patriotism, sadness, regret, nostalgia, longing, and even the hope of good to come can be felt in music. We feel it in sweeping scores in films. We find a camaraderie with others when we share a love for the same musician. Sometimes we are the closest to our truest selves late at night, listening through a stream of songs alone, absorbing the music and lyrics.  

After reflecting, I find that I write more, feel more deeply, slow down, and am quieter when I'm sad. And when I'm happy, my blog and my journal stare at me as I cuddle up with Nick for a movie night or head out the door to spend time with friends... As I live the life I've been given and make the memories that are so precious to me. 

I have felt guilty for not writing more, because writing does truly help me process both the good and the sorrowful. The happy and the horrific. And let's be real, we live in a very broken, fallen world that is full of tragic news, of fear, of deep pain. I want to remain present to myself and my emotions, both glad and hard. There is so much life to be lived, experienced, pondered... And lately I find myself doing that pondering aloud with Nick or Kasey or my family a lot more than with my journal. I process the pain aloud in prayer in my kitchen or on my porch or on a walk... And in the arms of this man who is not afraid to cry in front of me, to cry with me, and maybe even to cry for me. 

Sorrow Will Remain Faithful to Itself

Dear Aaron,

I often find that someone else has said (or sung) much better what my heart wants to express but I can't tame into words... You are ever in my heart, my friend.

__

When you lose someone you love,
Your life becomes strange,
The ground beneath you gets fragile,
Your thoughts make your eyes unsure;
And some dead echo drags your voice down
Where words have no confidence.
Your heart has grown heavy with loss;

And though this loss has wounded others too,

No one knows what has been taken from you
When the silence of absence deepens.

Flickers of guilt kindle regret
For all that was left unsaid or undone.

There are days when you wake up happy;
Again inside the fullness of life,
Until the moment breaks
And you are thrown back
Onto the black tide of loss.

Days when you have your heart back,
You are able to function well
Until in the middle of work or encounter,
Suddenly with no warning,
You are ambushed by grief.

It becomes hard to trust yourself.
All you can depend on now is that
Sorrow will remain faithful to itself.
More than you, it knows its way
And will find the right time
To pull and pull the rope of grief
Until that coiled hill of tears
Has reduced to its last drop.

Gradually, you will learn acquaintance
With the invisible form of your departed;
And, when the work of grief is done,
The wound of loss will heal
And you will have learned
To wean your eyes
From that gap in the air
And be able to enter the hearth
In your soul where your loved one
Has awaited your return
All the time.


____

“For Grief” by John O’Donohue, from To Bless the Space Between Us: A Book of Blessings (Doubleday, 2008).