Melancholy

I came across this wonderful quote from a famous Swiss philosopher and poet, Henri Frédéric Amiel (1821-1881) and I just loved it. It felt as if someone tore into my brain and ripped out my EXACT thoughts. The quote reads like this:

"These pages reproduce me very imperfectly, and there are many things in me of which I find no trace in them. I suppose it is because, in the first place, sadness takes up the pen more readily than joy; and, in the next, because I depend so much upon my surrounding circumstances. When there is no call upon me, and nothing to put me to the test, I fall back into melancholy; and so the practical man, the cheerful man, the literary man, does not appear in these pages. The portrait is lacking in proportion and breadth; it is one-sided, and wants a center; it has, as it were, been painted from too near".

I read that over at least 5 times. That's me! That's the girl I know! I write with passion when my back is up against the wall. The periods when I have no muse and can't find my own words are when I am happy and living my life in the open, not in my journal, in hiding...in secret. I guess that the same thing would hold true for all the great love songs coming from periods of lowliness when the people writing them had broken hearts. The best stories of our lives come from overcoming life's obstacles. When I am feeling melancholy is when I write best.
The very definition of the word melancholy is: a gloomy state of mind, especially when habitual or prolonged; depression or sober thoughtfulness; pensiveness.

Hmmmmm....yep pretty sure that describes how I am feeling these days to a "T".