When and where does she find you? When the past surfaces- losses left unfelt, unfinished? When the now turns out to be other than the future your mind had promised? When you see your lover’s ache or your child’s pain or your friend’s distress?

Sorrow. She laps at your toes and you flick her off, maybe whack her away or smile and beg her to leave you alone. You know if you let her in she’ll take you over and you’ll drown in the fabric of her gown. She’s soft and stealth and wears the ocean. In the depths of her, is darkness or shimmer or a clear calm day which you cannot predict or see until you let her in.

She promises renewal if only you let her wash through. She begs to be felt, received, danced with, drank.

Sorrow finds me in the quiet moments, in the pause between the pauses. She comes when I confront that the futures that I have constructed in my mind are not real. When I pull myself from my reverie, there is loss of what could be and never was. I always feel myself contract when she comes knocking. I don’t want to drop in; I don’t want to feel her. I’ll notice my breath get shallow and my mind go a flutter, grasping for the bright side and silver lining, for the next thing to do or person to connect with. Sorrow brings with her a void so deep I can feel myself dancing on the surface of my being, not wanting to be drawn in. I don’t want to feel the thickness and slowness and waves of her.

Thus I’ll dodge the difficult conversations or the hard decisions, I’ll tread lightly as to not bring full completions. In endings there’s sorrow. Loss. With clarity comes sorrow. Opening one door closes another. Never ever ever. Done. In closure there’s sorrow.

If you’re missing closure with something, you’ve likely not felt the sorrow.

Welcome her and welcome release. When surrendered into her, the frightening void becomes vast spaciousness. There is so much sweetness in the tender and sorrowful heart. The achy, open, hungry heart. Let her touch you, let her take you, down, in and through.