Am I Really Happy?

Happiness is an emotion known by many yet foreign to all. You feel happy when hanging out with friends and laughing with your family. 

If that’s true then why do I feel the need to cry? I laugh and laugh all night long, yet I feel tears of sadness building up behind the strong wall I built to shield the pain. I run to the bathroom to make sure I haven’t shed a tear. The tears are still blocked. The eyes stayed strong. It’s not only then. I step into my house with a feeling of uncertainty, communication is limited and everyone is always busy, it feels more like a hotel with strangers. I sit there thinking, holding back the powerful streams of tears waiting to flow onto my face. 

I walk around with a smile on my face, putting a ceramic mold on my face so my smile won’t fade. I put a voice box on my throat so no one could feel the pain behind it. I download happy thoughts so I don’t mention anything painful. I put a regulator on my emotions so nothing out of the ordinary slips out. I walk about my day like a robot, “a Happy Robot.” When I get home, I am back a stranger in a hotel. So happiness it’s there, but is it really? 

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Silent Pain

Throughout life, many people can come and go, but there is always someone who stays by your side. “The best friend”, the one there for you through your ups and downs, the one you can talk to instead of your parents. The one that never goes away……….so they say. 

It’s a silent pain to know that the one person who you spent hours laughing with, hours scrolling with, and hours doing nothing with disappears. It wasn’t a we’re done don’t talk to me situation this time. It was a slow-falling communication, the texts unread, the instant voicemail message. It was okay for the moment, but as time moved on the pain sank deeper and deeper. 

You had said years before, “No matter what we wouldn’t stop talking, no matter what, you will keep the secrets forever, no matter what, we will talk it out.” Was all that a lie? How can we talk if you won’t read my message, or won’t even look me in the eyes? It has been about 6 months, and the pain comes back in waves. One day I’m fine. The next day I’m happier. The next day I am crying in bed wondering about everything that went wrong. Will the pain ever start to ease? 

I started to notice, once the school year started, a sense of loneliness. Yes, I have close friends, but they all have a closer friend, the ones they spend hours laughing with, the ones they spend hours scrolling with, the ones they spend hours doing nothing with. Where is mine? I sit there some nights, wondering what happened if we had stayed friends. Would I be happier? Chances are I would be, but for now, I dwell in the silent pain, the memories playing over and over and over again. 

Sometimes, this silent pain consumes my emotions and my life. Sometimes I sit there silently staring into the distance praying for something to change, praying for someone to come in and be the “best friend”. But for now, I suffer through this unknown pain, while I watch someone I care so much for, smile happier than ever with others and move on. Move on, like I had never existed. Not a sight of sadness, not a sight of pain, not a sight of regret. Watching them move on without suffering with the silent pain I suffer through.