Melancholy

 Personally, I think that "Melancholy" is a beautiful word. Merriam Webster defines the word simply as:

   "A depression of spirits" OR

   "A pensive mood"

I believe that it is kind of more than that. Melancholy is something in between happiness and sadness. It is not nostalgia. I think it feels like emptiness. 

Sometimes I imagine melancholy to be a young woman. Someone from somebody's debut YA fantasy novel. With rosy cheeks and soft lips and dark eyes. I imagine her to be dressed in red silk and chiffon robes and her dark hair to be swaying wildly by her sides.

Sometimes I imagine her to to be walking on an eerie path in the forest which is only illuminated by a few feeble fireflies here and there.

Other times I think she walks through a dimly lit hallway of an ancient castle, long abandoned by its residents.

Whatever I imagine her to be, it doesn't matter.

Melancholy feels like a deeper shade of sadness. Harry Styles' "As It Was" seems like a melancholic song to me. It has pretty sad lyrics but an upbeat music. It feels melancholic.

I remember the first time I read about melancholy. It was my school textbook. Lord Dunsany had written a story about a boy who wants to become a royal acrobat. Since there is no such thing as a royal acrobat, the boy becomes a democrat, a political leader and ultimately a minister. Then he convinces everyone to create a post called royal acrobat and becomes first royal acrobat. But he is now too old to perfrom acrobatics. So his look in his shining new uniform is defined as melancholic.

Our teacher said that the story's moral is that you can achieve anything if you set your mind to it. I disagree. Because even if he achieved his dream job, he could not enjoy it. I think he failed. Even if he succeeded, he actually failed. That is melancholy I think.

Melancholy is getting a new haircut and not feeling as good/new/fresh as you thought you would feel. It is when you are awake late at night and think about the night sky you could have seen then. It is sitting in the passenger seat of car and taking off your glasses so the city lights seem blurred and insignificant. It is when you see a faded old newspaper, a used book with uprooted spine, an old register full of holographic and loving them anyway. It is peeling a clementinenfor yourself in the morning and eating it all alone. It is when you are sitting in your bed, writing your diary and your favorite pen runs out of ink but you are too exhausted to refill it so you leave your diary there, with an unfinished sentence, maybe a phrase or a word with a quizzical spelling and you curl down and sleep.