An Ode to Sunshine and Sadness
the cure for sadness, they say,
is a little sunshine.
The cure for sadness, they say, is a little sunshine.
They say its hard to feel all doom and gloom when you have a fresh coconut on your lap (with three colourful umbrellas - no less), the sun baking you into a glorious shade of toasted brioche buns, and sound of waves crashing to rocky cliffs. It’s hard to be sad when you’re on the back of a scooter and feeling the wind through your hair. They say it’s hard to be sad when all you do all day is lay on soft, white sand and have sticky mango rice breaks in between. Dancing in wrap skirts and flowers in your hair to pretty bad music but you're too out of it to realise, it’s hard to be sad. It’s hard to be sad. It should be hard to be sad. Should you still be sad? Why do you feel sad?
Regardless of the glasses of mai tais and spritzes (keep them coming!) or the smell of chlorine, it sure is easy to be sad, feel sad - still. It’s even more painful to feel hollow inside, feeling like you want to crawl back into your own skin, rip open a part of the universe and keep yourself in a void so that you feel nothing when everyone else around you is frolicking at the beach looking like a bunch of sunshine Malibu Barbies. You’re trying to feel happy, because you should feel happy under this sunshine right? Your body is literally programmed for joy under the sun.
Instead this contrast only highlights the lack thereof. The nothingness. The “wake me up when all this is over”.
So the sun is not your cure all.
I never thought sunshine was it for me. I thought travel was my panacea.
“She got up and went away
Should she not have? Not have what?
Got up and gone away.
Yes, I think she should have
Because it was getting darker.”
Whenever I feel it starting to get dark, I think of the times I packed up my life in a bag not bigger than a crate of beer to run away alone to a foreign land. It feels magical to start anew every other day, where everything is fresh and strange, and nobody knew your name. I loved playing this game. To strangers I do not wish to stay in contact with, I was Jessica from Detroit or Jane from Malaysia who’s doing a study abroad for Art History. Rarely was I me, because me is someone I wanted to run away from for a bit in the past.
If we’re being more specific, I used to think Europe was my Xanax. I still do now…sometimes. I used to think, if I moved back to Europe; found myself a little one-bedroom on the fourth floor with narrow steps, go to farmers markets every Sunday morning, write letters to my friends about the amazing new life I lead, fall in love with a local, host dinner parties for my new friends, easily drive to a completely new country under two hours away - I will be happy.
Any holes in my life, plugged. Desires, fulfilled. Fears, removed.
I used to think, and sometimes do still think, that wherever I am I will never be as happy as I was in Europe. In Europe I could let my hair down and stop pretending to be this image in my head I wanted to be. “People get me…” I loved to believe, “and no where else in this massive expanse we call our world would anyone get me as much as they do in Europe.” I get disgusted at how pathetic I was to be so in love with the idea of a continent, and I find myself mentioning “moving to Europe” every other day I write an entry in my journal when something bad happens.
There’s nothing wrong with a sunny day out, or strolling aimlessly in small European towns. They soothe you, but I think it’s dangerous to require such drastic measures to cure sadness (“Well, bye folks. I’m moving to Europe,”). I’d like to think that now I have found the cure for sadness. I’m not saying that this is the source of happiness. My cure gives me contentment. A nice, easy middle ground which is the best kind of happiness. Anything too extreme would make my head spin and my heart hurt.
The cure for sadness is perspective.
Slightly linked to travel, it’s taking yourself out of your shell and stopping your mind from going into that dark spiral we’re unfortunately too familiar with. I’d sit at cafes, or the park, or the beach and just keep my eyes open. Open enough to notice the small things and shift my views for at least this one hour that I do have beautiful things in life to cherish.
I was in Phuket yesterday and trust me I am not the kind of person that could sit and tan at the beach for too long. But I was at Nai Harn Beach, sitting by the water and feeling the sand drags from beneath me with every in and out of the waves. I wasn’t sad - this time I was not. I honestly am lucky enough to have such few things to be sad about at this point of my life. But I felt so much contentment. Not the kind that makes you feel so much joy your heart’s about to burst, but the kind that makes your heart a soothing, warm, glowing orb.
I was looking at a mother and how she looks at her beautiful blonde toddler in the water, and from the corner of my eyes: two small dogs galloping (really, galloping!) in the water. I talked to this tanned girl in an orange bikini of how cute her dog was and with so much joy and love she said, “Max loves the water, but he loves his rubber ducky even more!” and Max sure did enjoy his rubber ducky.
I held the sand and saw in further examination that it’s not all smooth beige, it’s small flecks of black, orange and white too. Then I thought how this sand came from coral that’s not only nearby but probably from different seas.
I held the entire ocean in my hand, and it was beautiful.
I was also grasping random plastic trash I collected in the water: straws, a cooking oil plastic, rope, zip loc bags - a habit I am trying to form - and noticed that there were at least five other beach goers doing the same. Everyone doing their part even if means their part is just a handful of rubbish. I looked to my left and there was a father in his forties with his family, also holding a bag of trash. We looked at each other and the plastic we were holding and gave each other a gentle nod and smile.
And I looked straight to the horizon and saw the massive expanse of different shades of blue. I’m not happy or sad, and this still isn’t a cure all. But I’m content and grateful.