In general, I am a very happy and positive person. I have a great job I enjoy. My son is a wonderful kid, and he is very easy to parent. I also have a great romantic partner at the moment who I am enjoying growing with as we get to know each other more. Financially, I am in a good place. I enjoy my home and my city where I live. Plus, I am probably the healthiest I have ever been in my life. I am able to pursue the things I enjoy in life with limited obstacles. Many people would love to say these things about their life. Especially in their mid to late 40’s. I have worked hard to get where I am, and I have been blessed many times over. I am very thankful for the life I live. However, no matter how great my life is, this does not mean there are not times where I feel down. This past Sunday evening was one of those times.
On Sunday, I did many of the usual things I do. I went to the gym, did my foreign language learning lesson, video chatted with my girlfriend earlier in the day, and I got in a walk with a friend I have not seen in a few months. None of these things were traumatic or went bad. Actually, they were quite nice. After doing these activities I came home and watched the NCAA Basketball Tournament Selection Show. My two favorite annual sporting events are the NFL Playoffs and the NCAA Basketball Tournament. Therefore, I enjoyed watching this and seeing when and who San Diego State, (where I got my Master’s degree), and Winthrop, (the school down the street from my house), were going to play in the tournament. The show ended at 7PM, and then after sitting in my den for about 15 minutes a sadness came over me.
Why all the sudden did I feel sad? After all, I did not have a bad day. I reflected on a few things to answer this, and I realized a few less-than-ideal things in my life culminated in me feeling this way. My girlfriend lives 9 time zones away, and we currently cannot get visas to see each other due to Covid. I have a close friend who is struggling through a divorce who I feel bad for because he wants to get this chapter of his life over with and move on, but his case is being drug out. Another close friend is having issues with her son and has had to make a tough decision concerning his future. My son was with his mom the entire weekend as well, and I felt just generally lonely without him being there. Since it was Sunday evening, and not much was going on social activity wise due to Covid, (and the fact it was of course Sunday evening), I really did not have anyone to call up to go do something with even though I wanted to get out of the house. All of this culminated in my feeling a bit down that evening.
Was it normal or justified that I felt a little sad? Absolutely. There is nothing to be ashamed of when we have moments like this. It is actually good to have them, and they are healthy. It shows we have emotions. Even when we are generally happy and healthy in our lives, we are still going to have moments like these. It is not realistic, or healthy in my opinion, for us to be happy and positive all the time. After all, I do not know many people who feel happy and positive at a funeral of a beloved family member. The important thing is to recognize these sad moments for what they are. They are just moments. They will pass. It is important to not let our minds stay in the place of sadness. This often leads to the downward spiral of depression which is of course not healthy. Therefore, it is important to find methods to both embrace the sad feelings, so we do not repress them, and then release them.
There are healthy and unhealthy ways to release these emotions. I could have decided to go the store and pick up a six pack of beer or go to a local brewery and see if I could drink every beer on their menu. However, how would this have helped me? This would most likely just repress the emotions I felt which would mean delaying the feeling of them to a later time. Even worse, not only would it not be physically healthy to drink that much, but it could also accentuate my sad emotions even more. This, or any other drug, is typically not the answer unless prescribed by a professional. This just represses the emotions you do not deal with.
For me, I decided to get in my car and go for a drive. I then put music on that played along to the emotions I was feeling. I embraced the sadness fully. After about an hour I got tired of feeling this way, and then started to look for something more positive to listen to. My sadness was fading, and after another hour of driving it was gone. Does this mean any of the situations were resolved? No, my friend is still going through his divorce. My other friend is still dealing with issues concerning her son. My girlfriend is still in Yekaterinburg. I do not get my son back until Thursday, and Covid is still a reality of our lives at the moment. While I wish all of these situations were different, I was no longer feeling sad about them. My emotions moved on. At the end of my car ride, I was thinking about the NCAA Tournament and activities I could do with my son this coming weekend and on our Spring Break trip.
I feel I would not have gotten to the point of being generally happy and content that evening unless I embraced the sad emotions for what they were. It was not realistic for me to just be positive and forget about these feelings. It would not have been healthy to drink my sorrows away. Instead, I embraced the sad emotions fully, and found an appropriate release. It is important we all learn ways we can embrace these feelings in a healthy manner so we can release them. Life is not always happy and positive. We are not always happy and positive. This is ok. We should not run from bad ways we may feel, nor should we find ways to repress the ways we feel when we are sad. Instead, we should embrace the moment, release it, and then move on.
Entry – March 17, 2021