I’ve spent most of my life dancing in shadows. I don’t mean the ones cast by light, but the ones that settle into your bones and stretch behind your eyes. Melancholy isn’t sadness; it’s more like a lingering fog, much like a silent ghost that clings to my soul like dew on early morning grass.

But people throw the word around like it’s poetic seasoning — “feeling a bit melancholy today” — as if it’s a mood you can switch off with a strong tea and a playlist curated by Apple Music. True melancholy, though, isn’t performative. It doesn’t ask for sympathy, but rather arrives uninvited and stays past curfew.

Google tells us that ‘melancholy’ is “a feeling of pensive sadness, typically with no obvious cause.” Yet, this definition barely scratches the surface. Trying to get a handle on melancholy is like trying to catch fog in a jar. We see it and feel it but can’t quite define it on our own terms.

Melancholy isn’t just a passing mood, but a state of being that can seep into our bones and color our world in shades of grey. While it’s not exactly depression, it speaks the same dialect. When I see it in others, I recognize the signs: forced laughter, tight practiced smiles, and the inward gazes that says I’m here, but not really.It’s as if we become expert actors in a play no one wants to headline. No pill can be prescribed to banish it, only keep it at bay for a little while.

I’ve tried to outrun it, and tried to bury it under television marathons, video games, and halfhearted projects – anything to avoid any uncomfortable stillness. It worked, until it didn’t. Eventually, the distractions lost their luster, and of course, the melancholy was still there, waiting patiently in the silence I kept avoiding.

You might think there’s a certain romanticism in being the quiet sufferer, being a clown with a painted-on smile, but no. At some point, you must stop finding it poetic and start wondering if you’ve become a parody of yourself. That’s when you need to start listening instead of escaping.

So many people I know seem miserable on a daily basis. They express an air of persistent melancholy without even trying. I can’t explain why this has become such a common occurrence. While forcing a smile or popping happy pills can help you push through your daily routine, denying your true state of being for too long can leave you in a state of seemingly perpetual melancholy. Believe me, I’ve tried those things, and I was only worse for wear.

Honestly,life can be a bit of a circus, and some significant stress is understandable. We juggle responsibilities and walk tightropes of social expectations on a daily basis.Sometimes, we strain ourselves to such a degree that we feel like clowns, hiding our true selves behind painted smiles. But beneath makeup and performative masking, we’re silently crying out for a break from the performance.

Unfortunately, too often, I see people numbing themselves instead of embracing their emotions. They binge-watch shows, scroll endlessly through social media, and anything else to avoid the quiet introspection that true healing requires. It’s like trying to fill an endless void with cotton candy; these coping mechanisms may provide momentary sweetness, but they leave us hollow and unsatisfied.

When it gets bad, I write. Rarely do I set myself down to make something beautiful, but to simply decompress. Most of what I write never sees daylight, and so much of it ends up in the shredder or deleted. But the real point of just writing so reflexively is to get the poison out, to prevent my soul from rotting of sustained melancholy. After all, even ugly, imperfect art is something we can live with, not constantly feeling dead inside. Simply the act of getting your thoughts into some tangible form you can deal with is extremely useful.

Escapism is easy. Introspection isn’t, which is why so many people avoid it like the plague. But when you lose yourself in constant distraction, you start forgetting what it feels like to have genuine emotional connection with yourself. You become a ghost in your own life.

Balance is the key. It’s okay to indulge in a favorite show, lose yourself in a good book, or play your favorite video games. But don’t let these distractions consume you, especially when they’re rooted primarily in commoditized nostalgia. Instead, use them as a springboard for deeper reflection. Or, as I often do, use these escapes as objects of delayed gratification which you only engage in after doing a given amount of productive work.

So, next time you feel the weight of melancholy pressing down, don’t shy away from it. Be real about it.  Don’t smother it with noise. Sit with it. Stare out the window. Let it speak. Write down what it says. You might not like it, but at least you’ll know what you’re dealing with and be able to face it. Let it guide you to new understandings and deeper connections with yourself and others.

Never forget,you’re far from alone. Our emotions, no matter how heavy they become, connect us to each other and to a greater universe we’ve barely begun to fathom. We all have our shadows, and in sharing them, we can find some light peeking through from the heavens even on the darkest days.

~ Amelia Desertsong