There’s a place between now and forever where our lives hum and vibrate through time. There’s a place full of emotions that vary between deep depression and the highest bliss. There are times when I wonder how such lows and highs are possible so close together, how such beings are capable of such complexities of feeling happiness and sadness all at once. I bleed sadness easily. I’ve always been able to do this. But happiness has been harder, trying. Happiness has been something that always felt forgeign until I was inside of it, until it was wrapping me in it’s arm and holding me down for dear life until I was laughing, laughing so hard that it started to hurt and then, all of a sudden, I was crying again. Because crying and hurt were easier to feel. They were easier to get along with. They were familiar, my friends. They held me at night before I went to sleep. They kissed my forehead before my eyes closed. They consumed my entire being sometimes.

I should have have known that they’d rear their possessive heads again. I should’ve known that the fleeting happiness was just that: fleeting. There was no room for both extremes.

Finding a balance is a long journey. I’ve survived this battle before. I can shake off the mask I feel creeping over my body. The suit of sadness that starts deep inside my bones and seethes into my blood and soaks my pores. I can let more light in. I can continue to laugh and smile. I can fight this.

Why is it so easy to hold it together when bad things happen to yourself, but so easy to fall apart when bad things happen to the ones you love?