Big Lady… (adapted from Merlinda Bobis’ The Sadness Collector)
She’s getting bigger by the moment.. I do hope she won’t explode.. No, not tonight! Please, not tonight!
There’s just too much sadness around.. And big lady keeps on munching on them..
Hmmm.. Does it make her happy.. to eat all the people’s sadness all the time?
Or does it make her really sad, too?
Taking in all this sadness, to make people happy again..
But what about her? Is she happy doing all these?
Poor Big Lady, with all the sadness around, she might burst any moment..
She might have already had enough of all this sadness..
Just like whenever we get full and feel like vomiting after eating too much..
Just like how a balloon pops whenever it’s already had more than enough air in it..
Even a sponge lets go of the liquid it once absorbed..
But what about Big Lady? What happens to her? Doesn’t she get sick after eating all this sadness?
I don’t want her to burst.. No, not her..
She’s helped us all endure our pains.. Taking them all in for our sake..
I do hope I could do something to help her.. I hope we all could do something to help her..
But how?
In a world where sadness cannot simply be avoided, how do I keep her from bursting?
When in fact, I too am one of those people who feel sadness..
That’s it.. If I were to help her.. I need to start from within myself..
Feeling sadness.. It’s really okay.. It’s normal for us to feel it..
It’s one of the things making us human..
But you know, it would be better if we would learn to do something about this sadness..
Use this feeling as a motivation to feel happy again, as an inspiration to achieve something, as a drive to feel a sense of fulfillment..
Big Lady.. Oh! I can imagine just how happy she would be..
If only we’d learn from this and actually do something about the sea of sadness from around us..
But then, of course.. It would be too much to expect everyone to do so..
I’m sure not everyone could simply move on and live a happy life all in an instant..
But this is a challenge I would like to raise for all those who want to help save Big Lady.. for all those who want to help themselves.. for all those who want to feel happy once again..
Happiness and sadness are not mere emotions we feel every once in a while..
They are also choices we make.. Paths we take.. Roads on which we travel in a journey called “Life”…
