June 19 2025 - Beautiful Sadness

Yesterday's Collapse

Sitting at work, in front of my computer… my mind wanders. What am I going to do after work?

I look at the sky through the big windows. I look at my phone. No answer. I check every app: email, Instagram, WhatsApp, Facebook. Anything with a notification. Hoping to receive life-changing news… something, anything… a meteorite that will blow my current life into pieces or suddenly change its course.

Although I doubt that happens very often in one life. It has happened to me before. But no meteorite is there, so I just keep working.

Earbuds in. Something is always playing — maybe music, maybe a YouTube radio. Someone always speaking while I do this menial task. My work feels like worms under the earth eating a body that’s still alive, still feeling those bites.

I look at these apps with hope. I look at the sky — maybe a cloud has the answer? And I wonder again: What am I going to do when I arrive home?

Then I finish, because I’m hungry, because I'm tired of being worms meal, so I leave and I walk back home, looking at the sky and wondering –what to do, what to do?

Pole? – no.

Glass beads gloves weaving project? – no.

Exercise? – no.

Going somewhere? Where? – too much to think about, no.

Scroll some more? – can’t take it anymore.

I’m home… nothing.

Sit down, it will come to me. It doesn't. Nothing really comes to me. Nothing is there. 

So I lie on the sofa to meditate. Still trying to do something “productive.” But of course, it doesn’t go anywhere. I’m half falling asleep, half in limbo.

I look at the sky again and, while the clouds pass by, my feelings start to pile up.

This is not bringing me anywhere. There is something I’m missing, something I need to see, something I need to understand.

The pressure builds — the pressure I’m known for, always pushing myself — until I burst into tears.

All the Way to Homelessness

I roamed around the house impatiently. Like searching for an answer. While the hopelessness and emptiness and judgment and lostness accumulates, until everything erupted in a bigger cry and I just sat down, on the kitchen floor, and though:

What if I just let everything go? Can I?

What if I don’t care anymore?

What if I don’t care about this journey, this discovery, my work, being productive, finding myself, doing anything, having a purpose? What then?

As my tears roll down, I start to imagine the consequences. My downfall. My collapse.

I see myself sitting on the street. No job. No home. No food. Nothing to my name. Nothing at all.

And then I think: Oh, that’s sad. Who would help me then?

My mind wanders back to a memory from that same morning. On my way to work, I saw a person who seemed homeless, crying from the bottom of his soul. I felt so moved at that sight. My heart felt like someone had grabbed it and squeezed it. As I passed by, I tried to imagine what he was going through.

I thought about approaching him, asking how I could help, or at least asking why he was crying… but I kept walking instead. All the while thinking, questioning myself: why didn’t I say anything? What could I have possibly said? What could I have done? How wrong it felt to just walk away.

And now, here I was, on my kitchen floor, crying in the same way, picturing myself homeless as well.

I didn’t help him, I didn’t ask, I didn’t show care or kindness or compassion. So… why? Would somebody help me?

I continue to sink deeper into my imagined consequences of giving everything up. I picture it vividly, every detail of it, every feeling: myself on the streets. People walking by, nobody noticing me. Going about their day. I’m invisible to them. I don’t matter. How I feel doesn’t matter. My inside screams… but nobody listens.

And in the depth of the pain I was feeling on my kitchen floor, together with the imagined pain of being there, I felt myself become part of them. All those people who, for one reason or another, found themselves there. At least a fracture of understanding: that there are many ways of arriving at the same destination.

All of us feeling lost, defeated, desperate, hopeless, exhausted, sad, unseen, alone.

And in that moment, I felt my heart break open — like a rupture that expands instead of collapses. And through that expansion, I could understand suffering a little more. And, I guess, understand myself a little more too.

That made me curious. Like I had gained access to a new part of my soul. To a new level of understanding.

In that reality, I was screaming inside: Help me! I want to be helped!

Still sitting on the streets — in my imaginary journey — I thought about what it would take for me to be seen.

An explanation? Talking to people?

I found myself trying to prove that I was worthy, that I wasn’t crazy. Thinking of a million reasons why someone should help me. But then I thought: Nobody has time to listen. Nobody cares to listen. Even if they did, would they understand me? And even if they understood, would they deem me deserving?

And then another thought came, as if responding to all my questions and attempts to save myself:

Kindness and compassion are not something to be deserved. They are something to be freely given.

A Mirror

I thought of how we walk through cities, passing people lying on the streets. At best, we don’t even notice, completely absorbed in our lives. At worst, we judge: They could do better. They made bad choices.

But who are we to say that?

We don’t have the time or capacity to know someone’s full life story — every minute of it. The truth is, we’re not even capable of fully understanding our own life story. Look at me right now, for example. We’re babies, still learning how to navigate our own lives. Imperfect. Biased. Human.

So who are we to judge who deserves kindness, compassion, or love? Who are we to deny that to ourselves?

I then realized that I too walk through life wanting to be seen, to be felt — the same as a homeless person. Maybe all of us, homeless or not, walk through life wanting the same.

Look at me. Feel me. See me. I’m worthy. I know so much. I’ve lived through so much. I’ve learned so much. Let me show you! Let me prove myself.

That is me. Walking through life.

What looks like me trying to help others is actually me wanting to help myself.

Like saying to the wounded: “See, I’m also bleeding” — pretending to heal their wounds while still clutching my own.

New Level Unlocked: A new way of showing up

As the pain that fills my heart expands it, and I feel pieces inside my soul almost physically detaching, tearing apart, I start to think — with curiosity, almost observing myself while experiencing it: What do I need at this very moment? Right now, what would make me feel better?

Then I reflect on what I would normally do.

I would listen, collect information, try to understand and analyze someone’s situation. Then, based on my own experiences, proceed to explain why they are there and what it means.

But I couldn’t take that at this moment.

I just wanted to be held.

To be felt.

Sincerely.

No words.

No explanations.

And so I imagined how I could show up for someone in deep pain.

Sometimes, like now, it’s less about talking or fixing and more about presence. A quiet, unspoken understanding at the level of energy.

No awkwardness.

No pretences of understanding.

Two humans making company for each other.

Not analyzing. Not judging.

Just feeling each other’s space.

The ability to be more feeling and less thinking.

To come out of myself and remember — it’s not about me.

Beautiful Sadness is Born

And from that feeling and realization, I landed on an image.

A little white tent in the middle of my living room, wrapped around my pole-dancing pole. Adorned with warm lights. Soft cushions inside. Candles. A cozy space.

And me in there. Just being. Drinking tea. Reading a book. Lying down.

It came from my soul — as a way of honouring my sadness. Almost like a ritual.

And I thought: That’s exactly what I want to do.

That’s beautiful.

That’s a beautiful sadness.

Falling in Love With Myself

I then remembered my recent idea about falling in love with myself. With all of myself. Doing the things I wish others would do for me. Loving me the way I want to be loved. Planning my favourite dates, vacations, self-care, surprises. Being intentional.

Well — this is myself now. I’m here, on the floor, crying and sad. I’m in a long season of sadness and I know it. I know why. I just had that acknowledgment and realization the other day — remember?

And I don’t want to escape it. Because it’s telling me something. Because it’s part of me. There is a reason for it. It just needs space to exist. To be understood. I need to sit patiently and untangle it. Without rushing it.

And why does sadness have to be something… how can I describe it… not enjoyable? Something to hide, as if it’s wrong. Like an annoyance. Like, hurry up and finish this so you can come back to sunny days and “living,” as it’s supposed to be.

Why is this not considered living, too? As normal and rightful as creating, producing, or any other state of life?

It feels natural to me. If you have pushed hard and worked a lot, you need rest.

And so, if you have been wounded, not taken care of yourself, not seen your worth, not voiced your needs, not set boundaries, lost things… why wouldn’t it be natural to be sad, to rest, to grieve, to recover?

It just looks like balance to me.

The Ritual of Beautiful Sadness

I felt this mellow, enamoured feeling. I started thinking about the things we do when we love somebody — the loving actions and thoughtful gestures: flowers, candles, food, details. When we celebrate birthdays, a picnic, a special day.

Why can’t I have beautiful rituals for me? Like making a tent in my living room with candles? Like calling up my sad friends or my happy friends to make company on a sad night?

Why can’t I come home and create calming, soothing rituals — intentional, thought-through? Ask: What do I need now? And treat it the same way we meal-prep or plan a diet.

I don’t know how long this will last, but it doesn’t have to be ugly.

Why can’t sadness be beautiful?

So I will create for myself a Beautiful Sadness Space.

I’ll adorn it. I’ll sit with myself there. I’ll hold my own heart. Hug myself. Feel myself deeply — emotionally, mentally, physically.

I’ll create my rituals:

• My silly goose rituals

• My funny-sad goose rituals

• My lazy goose rituals

• My just-sad rituals

• My couch-potatoing ritual

• My “I ate too much” ritual

• My “I only want to exist” ritual

• My sporadic energetic boss ritual

• My dancing-like-a-monkey ritual

• My crying-at-random-things ritual

• My listening-to-music ritual

All wrapped in beautiful, loving gestures and intention.

I don’t know what this will become. I don’t know where it will take me or what it will whisper. But I will sit with my sadness with even more attention. With slower breath. And I will listen to her.

I will treat her like a friend. Like a dear guest.

Hug her.

Talk to her.

Listen without pretending to know better.

She is my guide, and I will follow her.

I will please her till she’s happy. Till she’s ready to leave.

Me, my Sadness, and myself.

Closing Note

If you’ve made it this far, thank you for walking with me through this experience.

Writing it was an act of courage, but also an act of tenderness — of giving myself permission to honour sadness instead of rushing it away.

Maybe you, too, have a sadness that asks for space. A sadness that doesn’t want to be hidden, or silenced, or explained — only felt.

I hope my words remind you that sadness can be a guest, not an enemy. That you can sit with it, decorate a space for it, and treat it with the same love and attention we so easily give to joy.

Because sadness is not the opposite of living.It is living.

And maybe, if you let it, you’ll discover your own rituals of beautiful sadness.

Author’s Note

It took me a long time to write this piece. I'm writing this in August 16, and it happened in June 19.

I carried the experience inside me, knowing it was powerful, but afraid I wouldn’t be able to capture it right. Afraid I had forgotten pieces of it. Afraid of perfection.

And then, something shifted. I came back to it not when I was still deep inside it, but when I had finally gone through the worst — when I had found a spark again.

After I had to defend my sadness, my rituals, my process, my path from those closest to me who judged it… who almost made me doubt myself.

Only after overcoming that did I come back to this story with calm. I could finally breathe, read it slowly, remember, and realize: there is no pressure. I don’t need to get it “perfect.” Perfect is not the goal.

So I wrote it anyway — mistakes, imperfections, and all. And in doing so, I felt myself taking back power from the fear of perfection that blocks me. The same way I’ve been learning to do with my projects, with my ideas, with my life.

This is that piece.