There’s something about a ghost story that lingers long after the final sentence. It’s not just the ghosts that haunt the page, but the way it seeps into the quiet spaces of your mind, stirring a sense of unease that clings to you, even in daylight. You close the book, or the credits roll, and yet that feeling—the one that crawls beneath your skin—stays with you. It’s subtle at first, a fleeting chill, but by the time you walk through your darkened house or hear the floorboards creak in the silence, it’s enough to make you hesitate. There’s something about the way these stories lodge themselves in your psyche, leaving you feeling exposed to the unknown.

I’m not sure why I chase that sensation. There’s a thrill in it, I suppose—the way a good ghost story can pull you to the edge of your own comfort, making you question whether the world is as solid as it seems. It’s more than just wanting to be scared; it’s a hunger for the uncertainty, the tension between what’s real and what might be lurking just beyond the reach of reason. A well-told tale doesn’t just frighten you—it unsettles you, makes the normal feel foreign.

But this extends beyond fear. I also find a strange beauty in sadness. Sadness has a way of breaking you wide open, exposing all the parts of yourself you thought you had neatly tucked away. It leaves you raw, fragile, as if the world has shifted just enough to make everything feel sharper. And yet, in that rawness, there’s a kind of clarity. The pieces of you may scatter, but there’s strength in gathering them again, in putting yourself back together—not in the same way, but in a way that feels more honest, more true to who you’ve become.

I’ve often wondered if this is where we find our resilience—in confronting sadness head-on. There’s no way around it, only through. You face it, feel it, let it wash over you, even when every instinct tells you to run. But as you go through the motions, something remarkable happens: you learn to endure. You learn that you are capable of surviving the very thing you feared would break you, and you’re stronger because of it.

Maybe that’s why I create the way I do. Writing, painting—it’s all a way of making sense of what can’t be easily explained. It’s not just about the pain; it’s about finding the beauty in it, finding yourself in it. And in those moments of creation, I’m reminded that I’m not alone in this. There’s a strange comfort in knowing that we all find solace in the same things. Who hasn’t sung along to a sad song, feeling the ache of each note? There’s something unifying in the way sadness connects us, as if by embracing it, we come to understand something deeper about ourselves and each other.