Happiness has become quite sneaky these days. I’m not sure if it loves so dearly to play with you, dear reader, but I do think it enjoys wrapping me up in the many tricks and traps it has set all around me. It tends to hide in the most unexpected places, really; the walls of my balcony where sunshine is the clearest and warmest, the speedy wags of my dog’s furry tail, the dips of my loved ones’ smiles, between the pages of a book I hadn’t picked up in forever, the randomest words in a conversation I cannot help but enjoy, the gaps between my favorite person’s fingers and even in the corners of the messy entirety of my almirah.
Unfortunately for me, when it gets a little dark and I don’t have enough light to actually find these places, I lose my way in the ever-expanding maze of overthinking. Often, I scream into paper and ask around for help only to come back to the surface fully empty-handed, desperately trying to find the broken, fading its and bits of my tired soul. I must admit, quite a lot of times, I fully give up on the possibility of light even existing. I’m not really proud of how frequently (almost always) I seem to give in to this personal pit my friends are convinced I’ve dug myself and I don’t know what to do.
I wake up but do not get out of bed until absolutely told to do so, I go about life but do not put effort into actually living it, acknowledge the fact that I have no passions and desires left anymore and wallow in the blackness of my mind.
Then there are also those days that push me to the brink of total collapse, only forcing me to pick up a magnifying glass and look for light in the crooks and corners of even the shadiest of places. I toss and I turn, I colour myself in hell so the light can touch me and make me new again. I run when all I want to do is sit and I breathe when all I want to do is stop.
It is so tiring, I’m sure you must have guessed, but I still do it because I don’t want to get comfortable here, accepting this as my natural state, waiting for someone else to save me when I can do that myself.
My happiness has become quite sneaky these days, yes. It loves to wrap me up in the many tricks and traps it has set around me. But, I do love it still because it’s there, fleetingly but it’s there. I know as I drown in darkness that it will let me find it when I need it the most, and I’ve held on for so long only because of that.
If you are like me, my dearest reader, call for me when it gets too much. Perhaps I can sit with you for as long as you would want me to and then we can go look for happiness together once we’re ready.
