Sadness is an acceptance emotion.
Sadness and goodbyes go together.
Goodbyes allow letting go.
In a good goodbye you feel the pain of the parting.
In a good goodbye you know what you are letting go of.
In a good goodbye you know in that moment what you had
.In a good goodbye you know what you had and don't have anymore.
In a good goodbye you know what you didn't have.
In a good goodbye you know what you didn't have and now never will.
Goodbyes are SPECIFIC. It's not just goodbye Charlie.....it's goodbye Charlie's laugh....goodbye Charlie coming to visit to this apartment, walking with his particular walk and laughing, provoking, demanding in his particular way. It's goodbye Charlie and the way I felt warmed by his presence. Or goodbye Charlie, I never got to know your softer side...goodbye to the hope of getting to know your softer side.
Often bringing forward your sadness or feeling your goodbye brings clarity, clears the air, and releases energy. It is a quiet kind of energy.
What is the difference between sadness and disappointment? There are nuances. Disappointment marks some particular expectation or hope not being met. At the moment I feel disappointment I am feeling a heightened sense of awareness of the disaparity between what I'd hoped for and what I got, between what I expected and what actually happened.
The way that I am using this language, sadness and disappointment are slightly different MRI views of the same body of emotional experience.
Disappointment is often that first awareness of the disparity of hopes and actuality, with at least a hint of protest. The expectations while not met are still close to the surface and there is energy attached to them: "I expected a bigger party; I thought the food would be better; You didn't say as much in your letter as I expected; I thought I had done better on the test. Disappointment involves a comparison of what happened vs. what was hoped for or expected.
In sadness such comparisons may lie in the background. “I'm sad that I don't get to see more of my old friend Jack. I'm sad that I don't belong to the gym anymore. It's sad that so many young children grow up in families with the negative after-effects of divorce.” These experiences wouldn't be felt as sad unless there were an implicit something else to compare them to: what it would be like to still see Jack, still belonging to the gym, children growing up in families not damaged by divorce. But the comparison is more implicit; less emphasis is placed on it.
Sadness has less of the energy of protest in it. Whether through resignation or acceptance there is not energy for fighting.
Moving the sadness from resignation to acceptance involves facing the pain of letting go. That is what goodbyes are about.