Saudade is all about missing.  In Portuguese, saudade describes a nostalgic longing for something lost or missing, but it includes a paradoxical happiness for having had that thing one longs for, and a splash of hope that it will be either found or the empty place left by it will otherwise somehow be filled again.

The word came into use around the 13^th century and took on added gravity during the Great Portuguese Discoveries that started in the 15^th century, when ships would take to exploratory seas and often never return, leaving behind mostly women and children who lived in a painful state of incomplete loss, never knowing if their men would return, or when.

Saudade is both specific and abstract.  You can miss a lost lover, family member, homeland, time, or experience. You can also miss the sense of connection that you once had with the person who is standing in front of you but feels far away.  You can miss something you have yet to find or can’t even quite put your finger on, like a feeling of belonging or completeness.  And you can even miss saudade – feeling meta-nostalgic for not having had anything to feel nostalgic about.

Saudade is a word without an equivalency in English.  Maybe because culturally we work so hard to avoid the experience of it.  But maybe, ironically, saudade is exactly what we are missing.