I used to think that hiding my inexplicable bouts of sadness was the necessary thing to do. I wanted to be someone who was a joy to be with, but a person who so very often found herself weighed down by an invisible force was decidedly not a joy to be with. So I made healing and happiness the goal, and the sadness my shame. I tried to hide it the best I could, keeping the darkest parts of myself from those I wanted to love me. I always figured that being sad meant being unlovable.

But the older I get, the more I realize that my sadness is part of who I am. She is not a separate entity. That my lonely, bereft-for-no-reason self, who visited me monthly along with my menses, was like an ignored child left in the rafters. Pretending that she didn’t exist, telling no one about her, she had no other choice but to haunt my house, wailing with the wind and knocking on the walls.

What I forget is how much courage and strength it takes to power through life with this weird sadness disability. I forget how much it takes to pull myself out of this pit, time and time again, never giving up and giving in to the darkness. She may be a weight, but because of her I have developed a kind of strength that may be invisible, but just as intrinsic to my humanness. I was ashamed of her, when I should have been lauding her for keeping on, for loving still, for dreaming anyway. She is heavy, and maybe for some, she is unlovable, but she is every little bit a part of who I am.

I don’t know if I am going to grow old with her. I half hope she has a short life, shorter than mine, so I can spend a few years not fighting so hard. If she does follow me to my twilight years, maybe she’ll be a lighter load to carry. Maybe she’ll lose some of her tissue and her bones will grow hollow and she’ll float along, instead of being a gravitational force that pulls me deep into the earth. Just a white whoosh in my periphery; no longer a full apparition.

Thank you, my poor sad avatar, my dark doppelganger, my horrid little haint, for all that you do for me. I’ll introduce you to the group next time; come out of the shadows, and maybe you’ll get some color on your skin. When you haunt and knock I’ll tell everyone not to worry, it’s just your night song, and you just need to sing it. You are not my shame, my woeful little ghost; you are proof of my victory. Because I am still here.

There are those that have seen her and have felt her and have decided to stay in my haunted house. They’ve decided that the echoes in the night are no match for the brightness of the morning, and the dancing and laughing are worth the cries. Despite, in spite, or maybe because of, there are those who have chosen to see her and love her anyway. That might be the reason we should all stay, why we should not seek the view from halfway down. Against all odds, and against all the lies we tell ourselves, there are those who will want to love us. We have to let them. Let the sun shine, wash over you, and choose to live, one day at a time.