Melancholy..according to the OED

Melancholy... A strange word, wonder where it originates? According to the Oxford English Dictionary..

1. Ill-temper, sullenness, brooding, anger. Obs. Associated in medieval physiology with an excess of black bile in the body. See sense 2.
2. a. Black bile, one of the four chief fluids or cardinal humours recognized by ancient and medieval physiologists (see HUMOUR n. 2b). Formerly also called choler adust. Now hist.
b. Med. Originally: a pathological condition thought to result from an excess of black bile in the body, characterized in early references by sullenness, ill-temper, brooding, causeless anger, and unsociability, and later by despondency and sadness. Later: severe depression, melancholia. Now arch. and hist.
From the 17th cent. onwards the word was used in its later sense without etiological implications. In some quots. it is difficult to tell whether this sense or one of the associated symptoms (see senses 1 and 3a) is intended; cf. quot. 1859 at sense 3a.
3. a. Sadness, dejection, esp. of a pensive nature; gloominess; pensiveness or introspection; an inclination or tendency to this. Also: perturbation (obs.). As with sense 1, regarded in medieval physiology as a symptom of an excess of black bile in the body. See sense 2. In the Elizabethan period, and for some centuries thereafter, the affectation of melancholy was a fashionable mark of intellectual or aesthetic refinement. Cf. sense 3d.
d. Tender, sentimental, or reflective sadness; sadness giving rise to or considered as a subject for poetry, sentimental reflection, etc., or as a source of aesthetic pleasure.

Wow, didn´t know about the bile part... I think I actually managed to get out of my introspective, pensive, glomy sentimental reflection by looking it up. Was looking at my Exes "sons´" homepage. Strange how that could cause me to feel that way.. It´s not like I´m jealous or would want him back or anything, there is more a feeling of time lost, sadness at rejection and compiled hurt mixed with major vexation at how he´s treated his kids since the divorce. I felt incredibly hurt and dejected when he "broke up with me" but somehow the fact that he had a new lady friend a week later didn´t bother me overly, I knew we were all wrong for each other. But what really hurt was how I was willing to try and work on things, espescially seeing as I believed marriage meant just that, and primarily because of how he seemed to just divorce the kids as easily as he did me...

To make a long story short he didn´t visit them, made promices of having them over and then moved away, oh and he once reported me to the child welfare authorities because I finally stood up to him and refused to pay a loan we´d taken whilst been married by myself. Needless to say that went through quickly enough, one visit to the social office, a couple of phonecalls and I was in the clear with no file made. But it scared me shitless!! To imagine that someone would acually do such a thing, threaten to take my children away from me by claiming me to be a bad mother.. What was so weird as well was the sheer stupidity of it, he claimed I didn´t look well enough after them, wouldn´t a good father then a) take them on a regular basis and b) perhaps buy them some clothes or things once in a while???? And what would he have done had I been declared unfit?? He´s a sailor he would never have taken them himself, he´d have had his mother look after them!!

So why do I do this to myself? I´m happy now ! I´m appreciated for what I am, noone is trying to change me in any way (he didn´t like me reading, taking photos, being online or watching tv..anything that makes me me) and I´m blossoming in my own opinion. I´m going further with my studies than I´d ever have imagined, I´m loving my new camera, I´m living abroad :-D and most of all the kids are blossoming and quite obviously happy !!

But somehow it smarts that the man that won´t pay half of the kids airline tickets to go visit him, the man that phones the kids perhaps once a month, went out to sea the day I returned home from the hospital with both babies is now this ultra attentive caring dad to his fathered son (she was pregnant when they started dating)...
I´m being silly I´m well aware of that, but unfortunately there is regret, regret that I gave so much to someone that appreciated it so little.. Hey I, the city girl, moved with him to a farm in the middle of nowhere to try to make things work... I regret how much I adapted to suit him, how I became closer to what he wanted instead of being myself.. and *grin* I regret getting all melancholy for no reason ;-P

Even though I take great care never to speak badly of him in front of the kids and make sure they get their month or more with their father every year I´m perfectly aware that the kids are far better off having the little contact with him he himself set the target for...

He he, for a funny point, you´ve heard of the Icelandic genetic database right? well they´ve set up a searchable database for the geneologically mad Icelanders to trace their roots compaired to other Icelanders. Now most Icelanders are related to the seventh degree, *stop snorting* ;-P But I found to my surprice that me and my ex are realted in a funny way, whereas 8 generations have passed on my side, only 4 have passed on his. This is due to me being the eldest of the eldest of the eldest and so on, but it did kind of put things in perspective for me. Catch my drift..? Eeeevil I know but there is a strange sense of truth here, his family is very old fashioned....and in retrospect he was very much threatened by me..

O.k. enough introspection and blatand blabbering...Alias season 1 awaits ;-P
Funny how one sometimes needs a good rant to clear the air....