["Why do you always wear black?":] I am mourning for my life.

The line (often attributed to Chekhov) expresses a bleak, existential wit: black clothing—normally a sign of mourning for someone else—becomes a symbol of mourning for one’s own life, as if the speaker feels their life is already lost, wasted, or deadened. It compresses despair into a paradoxical joke, a Chekhovian blend of comedy and tragedy where the punchline reveals emotional exhaustion rather than mere fashion preference. The remark can also be read as social critique: outward appearances are expected to signal conventional grief, but the speaker’s grief is private, pervasive, and not socially legible—an inner bereavement that everyday etiquette cannot accommodate.