We’re almost there my friends. We’re at the finish line of 2020: the craziest, weirdest, most tumultuous, contentious, painful, scary, exhausting year that most of us have ever seen.

As I look back over all the essays and blogs I’ve written, I’ve never once addressed the subject of loneliness, which is really rather strange since loneliness is epidemic in our culture, and since I’m on very familiar terms with it myself.

Everyone I know is going through some serious suffering. I’m not talking about the suffering one feels watching a Tom Cruise movie, or hearing the phrase, “I know, right?” I’m talking about suffering chronic illness, staring mortality in the face, losing a loved one, being in dire financial straits: in other words, Hell.

Standing in line at the market I couldn’t keep my eyes off of her. I watched intently as she negotiated the checkout, toddler at her side, young baby in her arms.  What was it like, I wondered, having two? I was filled with curiosity, much as I once had been about pregnancy itself.

Melancholy is a temperament. It means mournful, soberly thoughtful, pensive. If it were a crayon, melancholy would be Cornflower Blue rather than Midnight or Pitch Black. Melancholy is the condition of being exquisitely sensitive.