This periodic morning sadness has happened to me my whole life, but always on my birthday. I remember when I turned four, I had woken up sad and cried my eyes out. My parents were so worried as they were having a birthday party for me and had bought me a pink princess dress.

Over the years I have tried different things to bring me out of that morning sadness, which I have nicknamed Sucky Sally Sadness to give it some humor and me some control.

I have told myself, “It’s hormones. You’re fine.”

I have told myself, “Get up. The longer you stay in bed and wallow in self-pity, the worse it will get.”

And, “Suck it up. Stop whining. There are billions of people on this planet far worse off than you.”

I have made myself list ten things that I loved or that I was looking forward to while lying in bed, that sadness a weight like a blanket of rocks, suffocating all light and air.

“In the morning, our nightmares might still be with us,” Aunt Camellia said, trying to help. “Turn it around and embrace your daydreams, your hopes.”

“If you wake up sad, kid, get your buttocks up,” Aunt Iris said. “Start moving. Get something done.”

“Pull your red gardening boots on and head to the garden,” my mother told me. “You know you find your peace there.”

What causes that morning sadness? I don’t know exactly. The truth is that I have often felt a lost aloneness, as if I didn’t belong, as if I was in the wrong place. I love my parents, love Jules, love my aunts, but I have always felt different.

I thought, even as a child, that I felt alone because of the premonitions. That it was the premonitions that were making me feel isolated. No one else in my family had them, so that right there, plus the fear and stress they brought on, set me apart in a terrifying way.

And yet.

There was always something else there, too. Something I couldn’t put my finger on. It was a loneliness, a tearful well, a hole that was unfillable, settled deep in my soul.

I never understood it, but I’ve come to terms with it.

I ignore it, put it aside as best I can, and try not to think about it, because there’s nothing to do about it. There’s no way to fix it, so to speak. That’s the hard thing I’ve learned: Sometimes we have a problem, but it’s not fixable. It won’t be fixable.

It is there. Always.

Over the years I finally realized that I must accept the hole I sometimes feel within myself and not dwell in it. Why let it take any more time out of my day than it already does? Why try to figure it out? There is no answer.