When I was a kid, I remember lying out in fields of grass, reading a book, or otherwise just thinking, never worrying about the future or anything that wasn't the breeze blowing at the paper pages or the sun warming my skin. I remember sitting by a pond, and watching the way the water was moved by the wind, and I remember a feeling I haven't felt in a long, long time. A feeling so distant it feels like a myth, or a bedtime story you might never remember. Fate it seems, has sought to strike each and every memory from the happiest days of our lives from the records of time, but I still remember what it felt like to be content.

To never think about the career I might never have, or even consider the possibility that I might one day end up alone. To never hope that this time, things will work out, because the past has not been kind. To never wonder what the future has in store for me, and never strive for happiness because it was always in reach. Why must I reassure myself day after day that things will be alright? Not just at night, when the shadows surround me, beckoning, whispering, filling my heart with doubt and worry. Even, in the morning, when I wake and see the sun, and remember the rustling of pages, and the feel of cool grass on my skin, and ask myself whether it was all just a happy lie.

Isn't that what friends are for? What family is for? What a lover is meant to do? To hold you and tell you that you matter, that you're special, that everything will be alright, and fill you with hope? If that's true then why do the words, the gestures, and everything else in my life feel so empty? Why do I sometimes imagine I can feel the wind blowing through my soul? Why must I constantly reach for those sunny days in my memory, or the happiness they once brought? Why can't I just be happy? Why can't I just be content?

If you have the answers let me know. I'll continue to reach until I find them, but my arm is growing heavy. Maybe if I just let go and close my eyes, I'll feel the cool grass against my skin, and hear the rustling of pages...