DIARY Kissa Sins 3 years agoJanuary 16, 202214006 views

THE SECRET TO LIFE

What’s the difference between enjoying happiness and enjoying sadness if you manage to enjoy it all the same? I think the secret to life is learning how to enjoy the unenjoyable, and not categorize every emotion as either good or bad, right or wrong. Because who the fuck decided which was which? What’s wrong with sadness besides the label? I’m an optimist, but not because I think everything is gonna be alright. I’m an optimist because I know it won’t be, but I’m gonna have fun anyways.

Let me preface this by saying I had no idea that this idea was unique or interesting until my 2nd interview on Holly Randall Unfiltered. It really touched me that Holly had remembered I described this in my 1st interview with her so I thought I would share it with you. I love Holly dearly, and her podcast is excellent – you should check it out. If you want to watch this part of my interview on YouTube, we start discussing this idea at 21:52 – you can skip to that time mark here.

Listen, before you start thinking I’m a sociopath, let me explain. Being happy is, of course, wonderful and preferable for all the obvious reasons. But as we all know, there’s no fucking way we’re going to be happy all the time, so we might as well enjoy the opposite just as much. I genuinely adore my sadness when it comes, maybe even a little too much. When my heart is broken, I don’t resist the pain, I embrace it wholeheartedly and really feel it, and yes, I quite enjoy it. There are few things more intensely passionate than putting sad music on when you’re depressed and having that good cry; The Cure doesn’t hit the same when you’re having a nice day.

Call me a masochist, but you can’t deny the beautiful intensity that is the tidal wave of emotion you feel build up in your chest when you’re crying for the death of your heart. My tragic tears eventually give way to tears of joy because I cannot comprehend the profound beauty of feeling ANYTHING that deeply. It’s art. It’s fucking art, and I don’t care what anyone tells me.

I can’t tell if this is a defense mechanism I developed during childhood to cope with the violence or if this is how I’ve always been. Do I have a hard time distinguishing the difference between good and bad because I didn’t have a choice back then and had to make the most of it? Or is this just my kind of optimism?

I love being happy and laughing, and feeling hopeful. But I also love the darkness. I’ve had some of my most tender moments with myself all alone in my house, sobbing with the lights off, blasting sad music, and taking eight-hour baths every day for two weeks because it’s the only place I can manage to drag myself from my bed. I’m not promoting these things or saying they’re “good”; I’m saying emotion is beautiful regardless of its label. I enjoy the rollercoaster of life, even though that’s a very unpopular opinion. The term emotional rollercoaster is always intended to be negative, and it’s something they tell us we have to fix. But how would you know true happiness without knowing true sadness? The peak of the rollercoaster is only fun because they drop you once you reach the top.

However much this concept has saved my life, it has also proven to be a very slippery slope for me. I have to be very consciously aware when I’m depressed to not lean too much into it, for fear of getting lost. I can sink too deeply, very quickly, into the melancholy romance I have with my own sadness; I have almost lost my life following her too far into the dark. I will talk about this more in another post, but the trick for me is learning how to balance it.

Bring on the sad. Bring on the happy. Just give me all the intensity and stop telling me being emotional is bad because I fucking love it. I’ve always loved rollercoasters.

Check out all of Holly Randall’s Podcast: Holly Randall Unfiltered

Love always, Kissa Sins