Embracing Melancholy

Up the creek...no paddle.

My favorite 4-wheeler corner.

One of a million raindrops.

The barn where many good games were hatched.

It seems to me that the normal everyday average human is on a quest to be as discomfort free as possible.  Myself included. Over the ten days we were visiting the west wet side for Christmas, I found myself thinking that it would be much easier on  me to just never go back.  That I would be so much more comfy doing my own thing without seeing those I love (and knowing that it was painful for them knowing we were only visiting) and wandering the places that shaped me (and seeing  big changes in their landscape) 

While doing that wandering I took pictures of the most homey of my homes-Grandpa and Grandma's place. notJoy and I and our younger siblings ran that place top to bottom for many years.  We made forts and played games and had lots of hours of talking. We swam and made dams and got badly sunburned on many occasions. I love it.  It is what I think of when someone says home, even though my nuclear family lived six miles the other side of town. That home is very different now.  There have been 40 years of changes to the land and trees and four-wheeler paths. There have been many logs cut to pay for improvements and taxes. 

Coming back from being away makes me melancholy.  It makes me want to play avoidance. I would rather not think about what will happen when Grandpa and Grandma are gone and my father and his eclectic collection of siblings are trying to make decisions based on their wishes. It makes me want to stay 288 miles east and pray for them from a distance.  I wonder if that is selfish or self preservation. 

In those hours of wandering in the drizzle, I had time to think well on the reality of melancholy.  It isn't something I long to experience, but when I change the perspective, and look at my feelings, I realize that feeling the way I do is because overall the memories are good.  That the experiences I had there were because I had something so many people long for...roots.  Long standing, deep growing. And that avoiding the melancholy could make them less important and maybe even less meaningful.  


I hope the next time we spend time on the other side of the mountains, I am able to embrace the melancholy the first day of the visit, not half way through.