made me sad
Examples
It always made me sad that there were kids who didn't have homes.
I wondered why I couldn't go the whole way doing what I should any more. This made me sad and tired. Then I wondered why I couldn't go the whole way doing what I shouldn't, the way Doreen did, and this made me even sadder and more tired.
I was staring to learn how to forget the things that made me sad. It was like a charm you followed step-by-step, collecting and blending the ingredients, placing everything in its proper place, reciting the incantation. It was the magic of forgetting.
I tried to get into comics initially after I graduated Clemson in 1994. I spent a year trying to get in, and I quit reading books because not getting in made me sad.