A CLOAK OF SADNESS

Love, I once thought, was the answer.
To all of the world’s problems. To all of the questions in my life.
But I was wrong. Now I am like the spinster teacher who, rumor has it, once loved a handsome young man with all her heart, only to lose him in the war. She never again dated another. Or like the bachelor uncle who, family wags say, once was married to the happiest, most lovely woman whoever walked the earth, only to lose her decades ago to a fatal illness. He never had the heart to wed again.
Now, like them, I walk through this world cloaked in an impenetrable and unshakable sadness. No tear is ever seen to fall from my eyes, but the sadness clings to them, like the fogbank hugs the shore. No sob escapes from my breast, but the heart inside beats quietly, softly, solemnly, as a condemned man walks to the gallows.
I was not always this way.
I once lived as if happiness were around the next corner, where Joy would greet me with a warm smile and kisses, her tender hands holding my face as she looked deeply and lovingly into my eyes. I really believed that was possible, that true love was just out there, waiting to be discovered by me.
I was not happy, not yet. But I would be eventually, soon enough. I just had to wait, be patient and my happiness would come.
You can live that way, buoyed along by the hope for happiness. You can live in that limbo, that birthing canal, on your way to a better life at any moment.
But you can’t relive that way once you leave it. Once you have been birthed into the world, once you have stepped around that corner, there is no going back, no retreat.
You see, I once had happiness. I caressed it in my arms, kissed it with my lips, touched it with my hands, beheld it with my eyes. Like a fool, I thought it would last forever, that nothing could ever make it end. Then one day, it ran away and left me.
Standing.
Lost.
Forgotten.
Alone.
Fear forced it to flee. It gripped my happiness by the shoulders and snarled in its face, saliva dripping from its fangs and the putrid stench of paranoia on its fetid breath. Before I could reason with my happiness, before I could promise to protect it from fear and all of its friends – anxiety, worry, mistrust and others --- happiness had taken flight, never, I fear, to be seen or heard again.
Now I walk through this world wrapped in my cloak of sadness. It does not keep me warm and offers no protection from the elements. But it is well-worn by me and offers me that comfort only familiarity can provide. It also keeps others at bay, standing far enough away so they won’t catch sadness too, in case it is contagious.
And it may well be. After all, I caught mine from my happiness.