The Book Nook

23

"I don't know. It doesn't seem like it. I don't think people are as aware of their own gloominess or why it exists. You, however, seem to know why it exists but also acknowledge that it's just there, not something with an instant fix solution."

She grew serious again.

"I feel like I'm incredibly more aware than most, of just how fickle and temporal everything is."

Her mouth, which I could barely see, was a straight line, solemn.

"And that's what leads to this kind of....existential sorrow?"

"Maybe, yeah," she answered.

Ever since the day I met her, I knew it right away. That she always had that about her, whether it was a look or an air to her speech, or the way she composed herself and moved through the world; she always had that look of otherness, of eyes that see things that are much too far away, into other realms of existence, and of thoughts that wander off the edge of the world and into a reality that is both presently here but yet not.

I sat there thinking about it, really thinking about it; that existential sorrow, as I had called it. I knew it was common to be uncertain of the future, I mean, name another person who isn't. But do they really get completely weighed down and burdened by it, not being able to walk three steps without pondering what we're going to do with our time on this earth? I've always felt like that was me. Like I didn't know how to turn my brain off from settling on thoughts my existence and how everything I do or don't do is the sum of my existence. But then I met Alexandria and I had never known another person to be so... consumed by those thoughts. I'd never before met such an existentially troubled human being.

"I've found there's two kinds of sadness," she said to me from over where she was now looking in my general direction. "There's the one where your body physically reacts to an event in your life. Where your heart aches against it's will. Maybe it was the loss of a loved one, or the breaking off of a friendship, or the words someone used to cut you open. Maybe it was just something heartbreaking you watched on the news, the pain of another being transmitted via your tv screen. That kind of sadness has a source, a root. Then there's the second kind. It's the worse one. It settles inside of you and lodges itself deep inside your bones with no explanation, no source. You wake up some mornings and even though the sun shines through your blinds and you can see the world teeming with life outside, you just feel sad, so inexplicably sad. It follows you around and pulls you down by the shoulders. You're just sad and you don't know why."

I just sat there, listening.

A lot of books have made me sad before. In fact, I like sad books. I think it's because I liked reading about people that were sadder than me and it ended up making me feel better because, compared to them, I had no idea what real sadness was.

I look at Alexandria, and I see her as she is precisely at this moment, her laying back on this kids' pink bean bag chair, her face pointed straight up as if laying under the stars out in the middle of nature on a warm, clear night; her hands rested on her chest, fingers folded, depicting a picture of contentedness. When I look over at her, I see someone who has seemingly taken on all of the amount of sadness brought to her over the course of her life and has, like me, taken refuge in knowing that sadness isn't limited to my own experience but is almost universal.

"I've never really thought of it until now," I mused, going along with Alexandria's monologue on sadness, "but I like sad books. I don't know why, I just do. They're comforting, knowing that the experience of sadness is felt and understood by others. That's kind of the way I felt when I read yours. My first thought was here is another human being who gets it, who understands what carrying the weight of the world feels like. I get that when I read sad books. I got that when I read yours too."

She didn't respond instantly. I took it as a sign to continue.

"I think my biggest thought has always been: what fixes that sadness? How does one no longer feel unexplainably sad anymore? Does it ever just leave? Does something have to happen in our lives or to us to rid us of it? Or does it just linger along with us for our entirety of living, right up until the end?"

I didn't realize if it had been something I'd said. Quickly scrolling back in my memory of what I was saying, I couldn't conclude that I'd spoken anything obviously upsetting. But a sound had come from Alexandria. A sniffle maybe, but a choking back of emotion nonetheless. Before I could even react and get off my bean bag to go over to her, she was already spilling over. She was wiping away tears with one of her hands, a pained expression crossing her face.

She then noticed that I had noticed and turned away.

I know that this was a more serious chapter; a conversation between two people on the topic of sadness. Does their conversation resonate with you? What do you think about the questions the Narrator poses at the end? 
Until next week,
Brendan