the happiness in sadness

I had a very sad weekend a few weekends ago.
I think I felt it with such force because of something I already know to be true, but I seem to be a slow and stubborn learner.
I should feel what is in me to feel. Let it run it's course.
I am ... aware... of how easy it is to get lost, overwhelmed by all of my feelings.
Which is why it is so important for me to be vigilantly self aware. To identify what I am feeling. To attend it, examine it, unravel it, understand it. To not let it consume me. To not be consumed by a force, a feeling that I do not understand. That I cannot deal with. I think there was a point in my life where I felt so... tangled, by a million unattended threads. it took me so long to sort out that unaddressed mess. To understand the place that I was in.

So it was silly of me, reckless of me, to let such a big feeling, that encompassed so many important things, to let it simmer unattended. to let it grow rampant. to swell and distend unchecked.

But I was so... frustrated about it. Frustrated at this feeling that will not go away. That is having a negative effect on me.
I got a beautiful book in Italy about the greek god 'Eros'. The god of desire. It talks about... the dichotomy of this entity, this force. how it is 'bittersweet'
I have talked before about how much i embrace this feeling. About how much it gives me.
But it is also heaviness. it is heaviness and light.
Thats how i feel about this person. They make me so intensely restless, but so joyful.
And there are a lot of negative things too. there are fears and weaknesses... all in the name of stregnth, i realise that. But as single entities, as ... forces in my body, they are hard to cope with.

And while it is so important to feel all that is in me to feel, doesnt it get to a point where... you need to move on? you need to start taking steps to ... not dismiss the feeling, but encourage it on its way out?
So I just tried to avoid it. I tried to distance myself from it. I was sick of thinking about it, sick of writing about it. So i just sort of stopped writing. Which is a grave loss.

Of course, it reached a point where I could not bear it, where those unattended feelings demanded to be felt.

Of a Saturday, I... capitualted.

I remembered that there is stregnth in identifying feelings, even weak ones, even sad ones.

It is strange for me, to feel sad. i dont usually feel sadness. I feel so fortunate that there has not been a lot of sadness in my life. So it was a new physical experience for me. the heaviness, the pressure in my chest. the swelling, the reeling.

This past week has just been... coming down from that place. And I respond, in such dynamic ways, to strong emotions, to strong experiences.
i think that weekend was stregnth and weakness. it was vulnerable and it was bold.
There was happiness in that sadness.
as there is an element of joy in every experience. In learning. in something completely new. in letting my mind and body do what it needed to do.
Walt Whitman says 'each moment and whatever happens fills me with joy'
So I have had moments of deep sadness, moments of intense restlessness
but mostly, I am very bouncy. i am singing, i cant stop singing. And that happens when i am insouciant, and ebullient.

So this is the space that I am in. Raw and exposed. and i am responding with intense feelings. dynamic feelings. oscillating from one intensity to the next. But I celebrate it. i celebrate it because i know it is wise. and because...
I feel very alive.
I think that is what is making me happiest.