How I’ve learnt how to embrace moments of melancholy (and how this has changed my relationship with sadness)

I want to start this post with the very clear disclaimer that I’m not making light of mental-illness levels of sadness or hopelessness – I’m more so referring to a more niggling, yet benign, whole-body reminiscent sadness that sometimes overwhelms emotional people like myself.

It’s not exactly a mood representing reminiscence for anything in particular, it’s kind of this strange longing for things to be simpler and this weird, existential feeling of everything not really making any sense. Does anyone else get these ‘melancholic moments’? Well I do, and whilst they’re most definitely transient, they do make me feel pretty wildly uncentered for a day or two afterwards.

I am a bubbly person (undoubtedly so), but sometimes, it just gets to be a lot of work to maintain the aura of positivity that my personality-type entails. I remember growing up and knowing that sometimes I would just wake up and not feel like being ‘myself’ – I never really got my head around those days, and why they were so…. Sad. They were filled with this seemingly unnecessary amount of self-reflection and this uncanny urge to do nothing, listen to emotional music and think about my life decisions in excruciating detail. Sounds dramatic – and in reality, it totally is.

But… what once was a ‘weird day’ I’d feel ashamed or guilty about is now a once-monthly (or so) ritual that kind of just makes up what I figure is the norm for how life must just work.

Like, we’re all a little emo sometimes, right?

Happiness is there to be enjoyed as a contrast to non-happiness – and I guess majority of non-happiness for an anxious person like me is stress (lol), but also – sprinkled in there – there is always going to be sadness. My dad once told me that our generation is so scared of being sad and alone, and that this was somehow a “bad thing”. I never got what he meant until I tried essentially cuddling my sadness and accepting it for what it is.

My heart breaks for the cruel things I’ve experienced, and also breaks for things I wish I could experience but am worried I never will. My mind wanders to worlds and lives I wish I could’ve entered but am too scared to.

And very frequently, my flaws show themselves to be more glaring and more debilitating than usual.

This is all normal and fine.

If we didn’t long for things we didn’t have, we wouldn’t need to do anything with our lives, right? Even living life leisurely requires the longing for a life of leisure.

Sadness is that longing manifesting as a feeling of emptiness or melancholy that we, as adults, need to start feeling comfortable with. When we’re uncomfortable with it, sometimes it makes us feel like something’s missing, when largely, it’s not.

I know that I lose track of this a lot, and I’m impatient and scared and need to gratify myself with happiness much more than I think is humanly possible, but that’s not reality. I’m starting to think it’s not how these bodies and minds that we’ve been put on earth in are supposed to work. We need reflection and sadness, it’s normal.

Revel in it. Listen to the sad song, have the cry.

Remember it’s transient, but necessary.

xo mielz

My life is apparently a flailing adaptation of How I Met Your Mother (but I sure hope I’m not as desperate as ol’ mate Ted)

I’m probably on like roughly my own Season ~4? It’s hard to tell (damn I hope it’s further through than that, I’m honestly not sure I can deal with 5 more metaphorical seasons of heartache, buuuut stay tuned)

you: Wait, what? She’s blogging again? Really?

OK yeah technically I’m no less single than the last time you were probably reading this blog, but I am a lot more at peace with it… true story.

Cheesy HIMYM references aside, I was unsurprisingly a confused puddle of “WTF” the past few days because I was coming to terms with the fact that I could partake in a mutual ending of a relationship based not solely on feelings but rather based on what would be the most mature and healthy option.

Me? having rational thoughts? I must be dreaming. I assure you, I’m not.

We were happy the day before this happened - we didn’t fight, nor did we have any other reason to end things other than the fact I was moving 5 hours away and we both felt apprehensive and unsure where this was going. So far, it’d been… well, fun. Great, actually - some of you had maybe seen our adventures on IG, and without a doubt I was the least anxious these last few months than I have been my entire life. Part of me is very sad that this happened, but part of me is super grateful too. Yes, I am grateful for this self-inflicted icky, stomach-dropping heart-pain but strangely I can legitimately say I feel pretty okay.

The main thing was this: I was happy with him, not just because I was with him. This was the pinnacle of my forthcoming realisation. I was smitten by the idea of stability. I adored how lovely it was to just have a companion that came with minimal jealousy or mind games – here was a person that just wanted to spend time with me as much as I wanted to spend time with them. The happiness came from a place of respect and, admittedly, there was an element of awe at how I could find someone who made me feel so comfortable with who I was.

 It reinforced to me that in times of searching for “the one”, we crave what we need at a given time, and if that doesn’t last, maybe as young people we really just don’t need it to last?

I remember writing last year at a time I was deeply reflecting upon dating and letting go of those we meet that seemingly ‘tick all the boxes’, I wrote:

“These boxes are not finite. They are complicated and unexplainable and exist in beautiful bouquets in thousands of other people. People also hold these traits at different levels throughout their life.”  I back myself and what I said. His particular bouquet was brilliant, but I am still working on my own bouquet, and neither of us felt at this point we had to combine for good. We still like each other, and while that wasn’t enough to dive into long-distance, that’s OK. Right now - at this very moment actually - I miss him, but he’s still my friend, and weirdly, that’s enough for me. I don’t feel possessive or sad that the nature of our close friendship might change. I’m just glad I got to be with him when I was.

I remember getting DMs from a couple of mostly older friends the day I blogged last year claiming that I wanted to be single for a long time (link), and those people advised me that I shouldn’t close myself off to people who could potentially – accidentally - love me the way I need to be loved. I was essentially avoiding putting myself in the vulnerable position of being hurt again, and by facing that fear I’ve grown more than I think I would’ve if I’d shut myself away. I’m almost comforted by this paradoxical prideful-heartache I’m currently enduring. I feel like I’m a step closer to figuring out what I need and how I’ll get there.

Whilst this blog was kind of formulated so I don’t need to awkwardly (sadly) explain my relationship status in small-talk and catch-ups, it’s also solidified the peace I have internally reached about the decision we’ve made. As I’m sure many of you have experienced yourselves, I’m struggling to unravel those intimate, automatic connections and associations I have with him, but that will pass.

I’m glad I’m 5 hours away from Sydney in my final year of medicine. I’m glad I’m here despite the sadness that might’ve led to this point.

He brought me to a place where I can enjoy the present and not anxiously obsess over the past, and I’m so grateful for that.

My present feels and looks pretty great (for now)

(Haha sorry - I can’t help it, I’m anxious af.)

‘Till the next absurdly dramatised recount of my life,

Mielz

x

A reflection on navigating 23+ (and why it weirdly feels so much less exciting than 21)

I’m sure some of you have felt this weird ‘eughhhhhh’ for this age we’re trudging through. It’s not quite a comprehensible concept, but it feels like I’m in this weird timeline-lingo where I’m not exactly living my independent adult life, but I’m also way too distanced from my young life to rely on other people. I also have this strange lingering feeling of not being ready for this stage. I remember watching Sex and The City as a silly little 13-year-old thinking that tribulations like theirs would be exciting when the time came for me to experience them, but I was naively unable to recognise that despite the humorous irony of sitting in your pyjamas with a glass of wine and a tub of Ben and Jerry’s, there is nothing that softens the dejection and unadulterated fear of not at all knowing what’s coming next.

What is next? Most of us have some idea, but in so many ways we have a lot of faith that things will just ‘work out’. I mean, if you grew up anything like me (and yes, I’m very grateful), you haven’t had to deal with much of this not-knowing up till now. We just kind of went through the motions, and although there were objectives – finish school, university/training/college, travel, share-house, keep a part-time job… then, have a career you’re expected to build for the rest of your lives. That, I thought, would eventually come. Well, it’s here for most of us. But… are we ready?

I think that’s where this navigating thing becomes a pickle. Social media, like real life, glamourises youth and makes it that much more palpable that 23(ish) is just the awkward middle-child age of your 20’s. For many of us, gone are the milestones of being head-over-heels in love for the first time, discovering the city’s well-known bars every weekend, or going on our very first independent overseas trips, and we’re not doing the exciting dance of befriending our first set of work colleagues (let’s face it, most of you are on your third or fourth). But on the other hand, we’re not getting married or having babies (well, not most of us), and let’s be real, hardly any of us are buying houses. So, what are we doing? We’re laying the foundations for our lives in, well... whatever way we can. And while that just sounds ridiculously ambiguous written down, it kind of sums up how this age feels for me.

Lol, kind of got to the end of this little ramble that had NO POINT, but alas, when does anything I write have a point? I’m just a girl grappling with obscurity and the potential ~unknown~, just like the rest of ya. It’s just really nice to write about it sometimes.

Hope your journey is treating you well xxx

M.