I Like Being Sad : By Sara Sheridan

I like being sad. I like feeling utterly alone or helpless or dark or all three at once. I like lying in bed and crying or just laying in bed, staring at my ceiling, brooding over the train wreck my life seems to be. I like feeling sorry for myself. I like being miserable and touchy and quiet. I relish in the question, “Are you okay?” I get off on looking ominous and answering with a quiet, “Yeah……(read, prolonged silence) I’m fine I guess.”I don’t feel sad because I’m depressed. I don’t feel depressed because I’m crazy. I like being sad because sad inspires me. I like being sad because sad gives me courage to say things. Sad gives me an excuse — more than anger or euphoria or mundaneness — to speak my mind. Sad sometimes even gives me a free pass for the things that escape my lips when I receive said courage.I like being sad because it gives me time — time to reflect, be quiet, be still, and just think. Sad allows me to center myself. It allows me to regroup, reorganize, and throw things together in ways that I never would have thought of had I been happy. Happiness is distracting, complicated, and subjective. Sad is simple, clean, and focused.I know no one else likes it when I’m sad. The responses range from empathetic sorrow to annoyance to eventual rage from those closest to me over the frustrating assortment of emotions I always display.“But you said [insert something I said while happy here].”“Well I’ve changed my mind because now I’m sad and unless you can get me either super drunk or super laid in the next thirty seconds, it’s not happening.”Cue stage one of quiet resentments radiating from those around me.Even when sad pushes people away, even when sad isolates me, even when sad makes me lose things or places or people, I still like being sad.I like being sad because I feel closest to myself when I am sad. Because, let’s be honest, who sits down — while happy — to write poetry or think about the course their life might be headed on or do anything productive. No. When you are young and happy you are burning daylight. You are dancing and laughing and loving and…well, not being sad. But being young and sad brings with it a veil of maturity. Staying in, staying sober, and staying alone has their perks in the form of productivity and sometimes even some online shopping (unless you are staying in and not staying sober but that’s an entirely different sad that I like).Writing this just made me sad. But that’s okay.I like being sad.