Living with Melancholy

There are days when getting out of bed feels harder. Every step feels like too much. There is an ache in the body that cannot be explained away as mere exhaustion because it is too much, everywhere and nowhere, all at the same time. There is an ache, but there is no single source. There is a profound dullness within you that you do not know how to shake. Melancholy is a prolonged sadness. A kind of grief that settles within you. Unlike most kinds of sadness, this one does not disappear after you cry your heart out. It stays, and over time it begins to manifest physically. The constant exhaustion, the ache in the body, the heaviness, the weariness that colors everything you do. Soon, the crying episodes become fewer, and a quiet solitude begins to seep into your life. You become more aware of this melancholy that now feels permanent. It settles inside you and slowly becomes part of your identity. Like a wave of nausea, the wave of melancholy arrives when you are least prepared, and…