Joy and Woe

Joy and woe are woven fine.

William Blake

I thought about this quote a lot. How pain and happiness are actually equal. They’re both on the same spectrum. You can’t have one without the other. You can’t know joy if you never experienced misery. Well, I guess you can. To an extent.

A few years ago, I used to love being in pain because it’s what familiar most to me. I used to dig into my deepest fears – of being abandoned, lied to, cheated on – and cried myself into sleep every night. I thought being sad and miserable is what I was, that this is my destiny, to be sad and write about it. I let it define me. What’s more beautiful than a sad poem?

I slowly learned that being sad doesn’t equal beautiful. That if you keep lying to yourself, you will soon believe that you’re the saddest person on Earth. Maybe it was for the sake of writing? Or maybe it was easier to be that person? I don’t know. Maybe it was hard for me to accept that I could be happy in the end.

I tried to be positive. Write happier poems. Write more prose. Keep track of what I’m feeling. Write when I’m not sad. Write when it’s not 2am and I have just cried my heart out. Write in the morning. Write after a nap. Write after a long day working. I had to force myself to smile sometimes, but it worked.

A writer won’t be able to publish a book if they just write “whenever they feel like it”. It’s not just about play, it’s about work too. I can’t sell my tears for a price. I can’t let people think I’m this melancholic person who refuses every chance to be happy. I can’t let myself think the same.

Maybe I’m not a tsunami anymore. Maybe I’m the first snow. Maybe I’m the spring breeze. Maybe I’m the summer wave. Maybe I can be all those beautiful and fortunate things. Maybe I am the ground. Maybe I am the air. Maybe I’m just me, and not a natural disaster.

I can be everything. And at the end, I can finally be me.

t.l.