There is so much sadness in me, it’s almost spilling over the brim

It’s interesting what you can find when you stop doing for a moment and start feeling yourself instead. I’m trying to do it more lately, and one of the things that I’ve found is an enormous sadness. Not depressive, my-life-sucks kind of sadness. I think that I have a pretty good life. More like a calm and appreciative sadness.

I guess that I am strange (who isn’t though?), but I really enjoy being sad and being with that feeling. Whenever I can choose, I'll always choose a sad movie, a sad book, sad music. I love the complexity of negative emotions. There is just so much more to be felt there. When you're happy, you're just happy. It's very simple. Nothing to think about and analyse there. Feeling down is an entirely different story. There are so many shades of pain. So many thoughts and feelings to be experienced.

Maybe I am wrong though. Maybe it's just that I became so familiar with the negative emotions that I can see all the different shades of them, while happiness is so rare and overwhelming for me, that I can’t appreciate its richness. It’s like when you taste something new and you just get hit by the unfamiliar flavour, not able to taste all the nuances. Only once you get familiar with it, you start to taste all the subtle tones and differences. Maybe that’s it, I don’t know. But I don’t think it really matters.

What matters is that I like sadness. It feels familiar and soothing. And in the end, it’s just a feeling. All feelings come and go, some of them are pleasant and others are not. It just so happens that what for me is pleasant, for most of the people is not. Matter of taste.

Since I remember, I’ve been like that. I have never hidden from negative emotions. Whenever something difficult was happening in my life, I would dive headfirst into it and into feeling what it does to me. I guess that I am the opposite of a person who suppresses their emotions. I kind of amplify them and go all in. Of course, it also means that I experience joy very strongly. But it so happens that it’s not something that takes place very often. Or maybe I just don’t focus on it.

I think that it has a lot to do with my tendencies to push myself. I basically live on the border of my comfort zone the entire time, constantly diving outside and exploring what is there. And usually, when you dig deep in your psyche, there are more wounds to be found there than soft spots. I think that there are no people who didn’t experience some emotional pain that scarred them in a way. There are just different ways of dealing with it. My way is to bathe in the wound.

I am not doing it in a picking-on-scabs kind of way though. I am just sitting with it and taking it in, feeling all the emotions that arise and letting them wash through me. Because they are important and beautiful and they also have a place in life. And who said that happy feelings are better than sad? Why is laughter considered better than crying?

I guess that my point is that sadness and negative emotions, in general, are more natural to me than happiness and I don’t think that there is anything wrong with it. More than that, I think that it brought a lot of amazing things into my life, like tango, kink and most importantly rope. Because what drew me to all of them is the melancholy, the darkness, the despair and the suffering that is at their core. Of course, they don’t have to be practised this way. I know many people who find happiness and fun and joy in their play, who dance to embrace and connect with the other person, to share intimacy with them. I also know people who do rope in a fun and relaxed way, to enjoy the sensual experience and the closeness with the other person. I am not one of those people.

That is not to say that I don’t find joy and happiness in my practice. I do. But I only find it and appreciate it when it’s mixed with pain and suffering. And that is also what I am looking for. I am not doing rope or dancing or kink because I want to feel good and have fun. I am doing it because I want to feel hurt. I want the heartache. I want to be immersed in melancholy and sadness. I am putting myself bare out there so that my partners can really touch me. I am fully open and vulnerable because I am not afraid to be hurt. I am not afraid of pain, of rejection, of loneliness. In fact, I am looking for it.

Of course, it’s not like I am searching for my heart to be truly broken. I don’t want to be truly hurt. That is why I love kink so much because it allows me to experience all these negative feelings in an isolated and emotionally safe (more or less) way. But I am not paralyzed by the fact that I might be hurt. And that gives me strength. It gives me the strength to know that I can be with the good and the bad. And it feels good to be comfortable with these yearnings that are so deep in me. To recognize them and appreciate them. To see myself whole.

Because sadness does suit me very well. I am a natural in suffering. And I am pretty when I cry.