Sometimes I am sad.

I sense the cause, but so? Nothing to be done – past cure, past care. I choke back tears. Futility paralyzes like a snake bite. This is not depression, a debilitating sickness. I’ve had that twice. For depression one seeks expert advice and follows doctor’s orders, to forestall worse. When you find yourself gazing lovingly at the sidewalk from eight stories up, you know things aren’t right.

Sadness is not confused, incompetent, dangerous. Anodynes may blunt its edges, but as with a head-cold one must wait for it to pass. I’d prefer to disappear for that period, but since that’s impractical, I recoil into a robotic politeness. “Are you OK?” Jane asks. “I’m fine,” I reply. “Do you want to talk?” “I’m fine,” I repeat.

Sadness is not wrong. Mortality, loneliness, brutality, cruelty, deceit, selfishness, transience are all sad. Humans, of all God’s creatures, are alone disgraceful. Other animals, whatever they do, make sense. Humans flail for no sane reason. What we do to our planet and each other – what could be more sad?

I buckle up for a sadness bout as one might for a colonoscopy or cocktail party: this too shall pass. If only I could vanish! –  but that would call attention to myself and invite condolence. Of all galling inquiries, none grates like “Are you OK?” No more would I discuss diarrhea (never typed that word before – hard to spell). “It is what it is,” in that bonehead phrase. “Just leave me be.”

Though loath to discuss my feelings with another, a talking jag with my journal exhausts my attention. I can’t stop reiterating my distress and rebutting my regrets. Shut up already, I adjure my caterwauling consciousness, but what good does that do? Fifty years ago, these BIG QUESTIONS might maul me – “Why were we born? Yikes!!!” – but they’re old hat now. There are no BIG QUESTIONS I can’t answer coolly to my satisfaction. This is the result of industry, not genius. Keep chipping away at your quandaries and eventually you empty the quarry.

I attempt self-ridicule, only I’m not ready. Yeh, I’m ludicrous, but who’s laughing? And no, I don’t want a drink. I drink to spike joy, not drown despair. Reading’s no help either – hard to concentrate. I vomit into my journals and yuk.

Henry helps – by not noticing. Dogs don’t know sad, at least for long. Henry’s the same cuddling, supplicating, comic comrade in all seasons. He does not steer wide of my gloom as one might from a fetid mendicant. He licks and paws and bounces and prances same as ever. His normality rebukes my histrionics. Why are you wasting all this precious chance, his cheerfulness wants to know.

Sooner or later the fog clears. The cause of my sadness hasn’t altered, but my outlook has. Boredom hastens my recovery: moping’s tedious, not to say embarrassing. The world divides between winners and whiners – which are you, fella?

My imagination has done with assessing this intruder. I’m thinking of Henry again. Unexpected large objects spook him. He starts barking furiously. Then, warily, he sniffs (no hero he). Turns out, it’s no big deal, this – whatever it is – kind of ho-hum really.

My condition, I suspect, is common enough, though few confess it, except to their shrinks for a pretty penny. Pen and paper make me my own shrink – saves a bundle. I’m happy to pay a pro to clean our pool, but not my mind. I dislike mind-maintenance and sort of like it. On lacerating pain depends our ecstatic joy.