[OPINION] The Necessity of Feeling Sorrow: a Requiem over the Bygone
The past is given to teach us a lesson, to show the possible outcomes and to prove the silliness of vague and worthless expectations.When we look back we constantly feel something: anger, passion, missing, happiness or sorrow. Sometimes few feelings at a time invade the memory and fill the consciousness to the brim.
Source: an artwork by Lisa Rey
Recently I've had a number of such invasions (the reason is possibly my current disability and the necessity to stay at home moving from kitchen to my room only) that dawn on me spontaneously. I am not a person who pays much attention to the bygone: I learn a lesson it gives me and go forward making the best of my present state. Now I have time to look back more attentively and I the feeling of pain and anger is being slowly substituted by sorrow.
I feel sorrow for the people who left me without saying goodbye, I am no longer angry or insulted — I have accepted this and I've seen my own mistake. I feel sorrow for this mistake — I don't crusify myself or blame the others. I feel sorrow. As if some part of me is dying and will never come back. As if I bury all the emotions knit to that people, all the problems, troubles and pain. The bright moments of happiness and sudden influxes of love and passion. I bury all that. I leave that and I feel sorrow.
Sorrow is actually a very complicated feeling. It's both negative and positive, light and dark, inspiring and pressing. I can't even curb it and make it out of my mind by hard work or physical activity. It is always there showing faces and shots from that times.
In September, 2016 I filmed a short video in which I spoke to myself in the future. The key phrase was "No matter what is there in the future. At this very moment I feel happy and free and I have a person where who I like". And I feel sorrow for all those feelings I had as I know that they will never come back. Something similar — yeah, maybe: better or worse or even of some other sort — still, not the same.
You have to leave what is dead to move forward — and this is the very thing sorrow provides us with. It can cleanse your mind, your vines, your thoughts. Don't be afraid of feeling sorrow. If you want to cry — let yourself do that. There's nothing to be ashamed of. Both bad and nice memories are tightly knit to sorrow as they are no longer alive.
Leave out all the rest.
Anastasia