Saudade

Among all of my least favorite things, among the absolute hatred of people chewing with their mouths open, or the ticking of clocks or the sound of clay pots scraping together, the worst of them all, what I detest the most, is missing people.

I’ve spent a lot of time trying to figure out why this brings out such a strong reaction for me. And I think what it boils down to is that there is nothing I can do to change missing someone. And that, quite frankly, drives me fucking crazy. When I’m uncomfortable feeling something, my first instinct is to fix it or make it different in some way. And when I’m missing someone, that is not an option. If I could change it, then I wouldn’t be missing them.

When I was studying in Germany, I had a good friend from Sao Paulo who taught me the Brazilian word for when you are missing someone. But he qualified it with the fact that their word transcends the English word. In Portuguese, the word has a much stronger intonation. It carries with it a feeling of loss, like not having that person with you leaves you incomplete in some way. I’ve always remembered that word because, in its definition as well as the way it feels being said, it captures so much more eloquently how I feel when I miss someone. The word is saudade, but the last d comes off as more of a soft g when he said it. It’s such a beautiful word to describe such an unwelcome feeling.

I’m always missing someone lately it seems. Missing old friends. Missing old loves. Just missing. And I can honestly say that the Portuguese way of summing that up is much closer to how I feel than the simple act of missing someone.

Like even though my strength has multiplied exponentially over the past several months, that there is still a part of me that is not entirely whole because of the lack of these people in my life. While I know I can stand on my own without them, the world is so much more beautiful with them by my side.