Happiness Is Simple

Happiness is simple.

I've got it figured out.

I remember sitting on my porch.

Staring at an acceptance letter I had just opened from my dream school.

I remember that momentous surge of joy.

It lasted about as long as it took me to text my family the news.

I'm an anxious person, prone to self-destructive and depressive states.

And in that pivotal moment in my life, I still couldn't shake that forever aching feeling in my stomach.

Somehow, the knawing anxiety hadn't been quenched.

At the time I didn't question it.

It was much later when I realized how that was wrong.

I mean, two hard-worked years culminated into a 150-word letter spelling success, and I still couldn't enjoy myself.

That moment propelled me into the more well-adjusted person I am now.

.......................................................................

Your happiness is, and will only ever be,

As great as your sadness was and has ever been.

You see, I learned:

Satisfaction in life is a game of tug-o-war,

In that the tension created from each opposing side is felt most in the middle.

Where you are.

I believed for a long time that doing the things that I thought would make me happy would actually make me happy but doesn't the hand that uplifts you also clench you in its fist?

To me, happiness and sadness define each other.

They determine each other's depths.

I stand in front of you, a college graduate.

I stand here in front of you, in debt and bewildered.

Though I know so many of my peers are in the same position and I guess that makes me feel better because now I'm not the only one struggling.

Though I always have been.

Before the debt and before the college;

Before high school, and before that entire chapter of my life I dedicated to figuring out what kind of person I wanted to be,

I can always remember coping with my sadness-

With my dissatisfaction, and anger, and frustration.

Through the divorce of my parents or the aftermath, or the minutes I wasted as a kid crying to my mother not to leave even though God had granted her some midlife soulmate to move away with, I coped.

And I learned.

You see I learned what happiness means.

I witnessed what it stands for.

Happiness is accepting even those ugly parts.

It's facing those drooling demons in the corner which we dare not glance towards for fear of anxiety, or depression, or self-loathing.

I learned that my happiness included embracing my sadness.

That the demon and the angel that tug at each ear are co-dependent-

That contrast defines my reality.

It's not easy, or satisfying.

It isn't meant to be.

But chasing the warmth of the Sun means one is always running from their shadow.

It can seem like perpetual torment

Spiraling in upon itself. It's often ouroboros.

It's a cycle disguised as fulfilment. It's seemingly endless.

But it's not.

We never notice how much easier it is to ruin a good mood than it is to climb out of a bad one.

We never prod at why we're sad because we're too busy exploring why we aren't happy.

We never stop to consider that the abysmal black is just as important as the purifying white-

That vitality and satisfaction are awarded by the trials of deprivation and melancholy.

And still I'm not there.

You might not be either.

But hold steadfast- if the light at the end of the tunnel never arrives, we'll learn to see in the dark.