Day Seventeen – What Makes Me Sad?

I guess this was to be expected after yesterday’s “What Makes Me Happy?”.

Merriam-Webster tells us sad [ sad ] is an adjective meaning affected with or expressive of unhappiness.

If you spend any time in Bali, you will probably notice statues wearing a black and white checked cloth called a saput poleng which symbolizes the coexistence of opposites and the ultimate goal of harmony.  The Balinese people believe that joy will always be balanced by sorrow, and that good and evil exist in the world and everyone.  They embrace differences because they create balance and harmony.  Following this theory, you can’t experience happiness if you have never known sadness. Think about it, without sadness, happiness has no meaning.

Today’s topic might be even more challenging than yesterday’s.  I won’t say that I never experienced sadness because that would mean I’ve never been happy, and I like to believe I am happy most of the time.  So what makes me sad?

I think it was easier to feel sadness, believe it or not, as a kid.  I’m not talking about deep, sorrowful, depressive sadness, but the sadness that comes when you’re six and you misplace your favorite toy.  Or you’re ten and your Little League team loses.  How about when you get your first B on your report card, and you have always had straight A’s?  Then there was that time one summer when you got a new bathing suit, and you couldn’t wait to wear it on Sunday because you were going to the Elk’s Shore Club on Lake Erie in Ashtabula, and it ended up raining.  That all-important Warren, Ohio football rivalry, Harding vs. Reserve.  How sad we were when our team lost.

There’s a different kind of sadness that comes with being an adult.

I was sad when my friends came to visit me in Bali and I took them to visit Pura Lempuyang, the Gate to Heaven.  I was sad because when I was there just a year and a half earlier, it was just an important temple for the Balinese people.  When I took my friends, there was a two to three-hour wait to take a photo at the now Instagram-famous Candi Bentar or Gate.  People were surprised/disappointed to discover there was no lake or water at the gates but merely a camera trick of placing a mirror beneath the camera lens so that the picture appears to be reflected on non-existent water.  Not only that, but you must hand your phone over to a “local” photographer with a donation so he will snap your photo and you get 3 poses.

I find the Gate to Heaven stunning without the Instagram sham of water.  It made me sad that most people were there to get that all-important Instagram shot and forgot or maybe didn’t even know that Pura Lempuyang is one of Bali’s six major temples known as Sad (six) Kahyangan (place of Gods) or that it is only one of seven temples in the complex.  It made me sad that people were disrespectful to the fact that it is a sacred place to the Balinese.

I was sad every time I left one of my schools in China.  Sad, because you say, “I’ll come to visit”, instead of saying goodbye, but deep down you know, it’s goodbye.  You get through that by thinking of the quote from Dr. Seuss, “Don’t cry because it’s over.  Smile because it happened.”

I was sad when I left Bali, but happy I was going to Ohio for the Robins Opening.  I’m sure I will be sad the day I leave Poland, but excited for what awaits me.

In my adult life, the thing that has brought me the most sadness is death, the death of my parents, but not in the way you might think.  Death is always sad, but it is a part of life.  The saddest thing about their death is what they have missed.  It made me sad that they weren’t there on January 9, 2020, sitting in the front row of the mezzanine (my dad always liked to sit in the balcony).  My dad letting out a whistle when Mark stepped from behind the curtain.  I’m sad they never got to see what he accomplished in downtown Warren and across the globe.  It makes me sad that they never got to see me follow my dream.  I guarantee they would have been to Paris, China, Bali, Poland, and anywhere in between to visit me.   Please, none of that bullshit, “Oh, they were there”, or “They have been with you”.  Nah, not the same.  Not only that, but I’m also not sure I want them with me all the time or seeing everything.  I mean seriously, if “they were there” on opening night, what about that time I got a little freaky with so and so?  Nope, best they aren’t around.  I will settle for being sad that they weren’t there.

Anyways, life has its ups and downs, its happiness and sadness, and somehow through it all, life is pretty damn good.