Hello Sadness,

I wasn’t expecting you to visit but please feel free to stay a while.

I understand that many struggle to know you, but I’ve learned over the years that you hold honour in your hands.

How would I know joy if I didn’t know you?

How would I know love if I didn’t experience loss?

You are a time I have learned to acknowledge and accept. A time that allows me to grow.

I used to be so scared of you sadness, I felt by acknowledging your existence I was admitting failure. Yet I now know this was wrong. I cannot live in continuous state of happiness it becomes false and empty. Life isn’t all fairytales and unicorns.

I need to know you sadness, to learn to appreciate all that is good. I need to accept you to allow my heart to feel completely.

I confess though, I often don’t know what to do when you visit. The world does become a little darker, I become a little lonelier.

I worry about burdening my friends when you visit, yet isn’t friendship about sharing the highs and the lows?

I have found in my own transparency that others find the freedom to share their truth.

That they too, often worry when you come to stay.

Sadness you are my truth, you allow me to see what is good and what isn’t it my life. You give me the space and the need to fix the things I can change or to accept those I cannot.

Perfection is a myth that often becomes a noose around our necks.

The fear of failure which hold us back.

Yet to try and to fail, is at least to try.

Mistakes are life lessons we all have to learn.

I often get caught in the “should have’s or the why’s when my truth should be “with thanks”.

To turn my wants into gratitude.

I’m thankful for this day, this moment.

May this battle challenge me to be wiser, stronger.

May this “have not” make me appreciate more the haves.

May the cannot’s make me more thankful for the can’s.

So hello sadness, let me sit in you for a while.

Only for a while though x