What Sadness Teaches Us About Who We Are
My therapist says that sadness is the emotion that tells us the most about who we are as individuals. “Sadness,” she explains, “lets us know what we’ve lost. That’s how we know what matters to us.”
When I was 22, I lost my best friend. We’d graduated college together less than a year before. After graduation, we both went home to our parents and somehow boomeranged back to our college town. In the four years we spent living on campus, we’d fought like siblings: One minute cuddled together laughing at things on the internet and the next throwing backpacks at each other and screaming about things that, honestly, couldn’t have mattered less.
As newly-minted adults, the world changed fast, and we changed with it. She got an apartment first and I visited almost daily, regularly staying until long after sunset. Our friendship became so intimate that I would sit on her bathroom vanity and chat with her as she showered, arguing about the meanings of our favorite songs over the spray of hot water.
We fought once in those first few months of true adulthood. Then she became sick. Our pointless arguing fell away and our routine changed: She lost the ability to work and I put her as the focal point of my world. After work every day, I’d drive to her house and cook dinner before settling into the couch and hanging out with her until I…
