If pain does not wait for permission to exist, then neither should happiness.
The sky hesitates between gray and gold, as if the sun itself is uncertain of its place in the day. The air is still, thick with something unspoken, the kind of silence that settles in the bones before the mind even names it. And yet, there is music – a saxophone wails from a distant window, its notes curling through the morning chill. A child’s laughter skips across the pavement. Somewhere, unseen but undeniable, someone is dancing, even if the world has not yet granted them permission.
I have spent years waiting. Waiting for sorrow to loosen its grip, for struggle to ease, for some distant softness where joy will come unbidden, no longer something I must wrestle from the hands of time. I have told myself that happiness must be earned, that it will arrive when the burdens lift, when the road smooths, when the weight of living becomes light enough to carry without aching.
But the world is not made of velvet. It is rough-hewn and unyielding, a place of cracked sidewalks and splintered dreams. If I wait for life to be easy, I may wait forever.
So today, I choose joy. Not because the struggle has ended, but because my heart still beats. Because the sun still rises, indifferent to my burdens yet insistent upon shining. Because if pain does not wait for permission to exist, then neither should happiness.
I will sip my tea slowly, letting warmth settle in my chest. I will let laughter slip through my lips unguarded. I will press my palms against the small mercies of the day – the rhythm of rain against the windowpane, the scratch of a pen across paper, the way a familiar song can pull something tender from the past and place it gently in my hands.
Sorrow will come, as it always does. It will knock at the door, take its seat at the table, remind me of all that still aches. But I will not let it lock the door. I will not let it be the only voice in the room.
Because joy, even in fragments, is still joy. And I refuse to wait to claim it.
