The word 'sadness' originally meant 'fullness.'
To be filled to the brim with some intensity of experience.
It's not about despair, or distraction,
or controlling how you're supposed to feel.
It's about awareness.
Setting the focus to infinity and taking it all in,
joy and grief all at once.
Feeling the world as it is,
the world as it could be.
The unknown and the unknowable
closeness and distance and trust
and the passage of time.
And all the others around you, who are each going through the same thing.
The Romans called it Lacrimae Rerum, 'the tears of things.'
I call them 'Obscure Sorrows.'