Sadness is healing.

I've felt so much of this in the last year of my life. I've read a fair amount
of eastern philosophy and from what i gather great sadness is
considered to be the threshold preceding enlightenment. If that's so,
i've got an extended date with a bodhi tree in the near future.
But i suppose that's a little different. That kind of sadness is the result
of cultivating compassion and having to bear the weight of the things
you see in the world around you. This sadness is a result of personal
loss. Of things that we hold dear being torn or turning away from us.
People have different modes of thinking and remembering. My memory
is largely visual. So i really think in colour and texture. This also
informs my other sense memories and tends to make them into some
sort of moving blended dream that's like a vignette. A snap shot of a
person. So i have these little nostalgic movies playing themselves out
and swirling around in my central nervous system. The way my lover
smelled, the feeling I had when i watched her feeling sad, the sound
of my mothers laugh and witnessing her genuine concern for anyone
that she met. All of these moments live inside me still. I was tethered
to these people by the bond of family and by the inexplicable bond
of pure chemistry and love. Those connections are as strong as any
physical and when they are abruptly gone our emotional selves are
thrown into a state of shock. Severed invisible nerve endings dancing
in the wind. Slowly trying to mend themselves.
And like any healing process, it has to hurt.