Saudade
Saudade – a Portuguese word with heavy cultural and historical meaning, without a direct translation into English.
According to the Dicionário Houaiss da Língua Portuguesa, the term saudade is defined as:
“a somewhat melancholic feeling of incompleteness; related to thinking back on situations of privation due to the absence of someone or something, to move away from a place or thing, or to the absence of a set of particular and desirable experiences and pleasures once lived.”
It even has it’s own national day in Brazil – January 30th (Dia da Saudade) – which, fittingly enough, was yesterday.
Why does saudade fascinate me?
I tend to feel emotions quite intensely. Hopelessly sentimental, if you will.
Nostalgia has always been a major one for me. It’s often been linked to the concept of saudade, which does encompass nostalgia, however saudade runs much deeper.
And I feel that I resonate with it much better.
I tend to look back on the fond moments in the past, which bring a sense of happiness while I’m reflecting on it, to then be snuffed out by a strong sense of melancholy upon returning to reality.
I read a lot about being in the present – but when am I ever really there?
I’m either anxious about the future, or I’m wrapped in my saudade.
If it’s not about a place, it’s about a time, or a someone.
And it’s often a moving target.
Getting older, and witnessing places change and others around also get older, coupled with having been away from home for years, I can’t help sometimes but be in my head.
Often, too in my head.
And in my sentiments.
A memory may be a great thing but it can become complicated when it’s longed for.
It’s that disconnect between the emotion and the memory, the melancholy that persists in the present moment.
I’ve tried many times to kill it but it never seems to stay down for too long.
Maybe it never will.
In the end, all that I do will just be a memory, no?
Until it’s not anymore.
