"we've got tonight."

I am no good with happiness.


It's something you fumble with, like a slick ball you're trying to juggle in your hand but keeps trying to slide. Like something you try to hold on to with both hands instead of one; like a thin rope you try to walk on with your arms outstretched as to not to fall down the cliff. Over the years you've learned over and over again how to keep this balance so you'll know what to expect at the end of the road.You learned about it so much that you're getting exceptionally good at mastering to disguise the word in your head.


This word, this nine-letter word that everyone has different definitions of, is becoming somewhat dangerous to your well-being. It lurks in the corner, hides under the bed, waits outside your room in the dark. Out of nowhere it would sneak up on you, out in full force and knocking all senses out of your system, lowering and eventually demolishing anything that used to stand between perfect happiness and common sense--including pride.  And I'm not talking about simple happiness e.g. seeing your best friend or getting your hands on that Ben & Jerry's pint or buying Neil Gaiman's latest book or watching a teen flick on a lazy Sunday.  I'm talking about a hurricane, a monster storm of explosive rush of feelings so pleasant and shocking it's ridiculous. The force is so powerful and magnetic that it leaves you breathless yearning for more. It peels off the most inner layers of you one by one, undressing it very slowly and subtly to the point where you didn't even know existed. Happiness can make you do things you never thought you'd do or deliver words you thought you'd never say.  Because deep down, deep down you know just how quick it is for you to just let yourself go; to go from the phase of exchanging glances and conversations, to insisting ignorance, and how you start curling up a smile which turns to a grin and eventually a laughter; the flutter in your chest and the tingles in your spine; the crazy anticipation and the scary, nerve-wrecking realization that you need to admit how unsuccessful you've been in kicking that person out of your mind.


That's how cruel happiness can be.


It's not that you don't believe in this word; in all of your 25 years of living, you're lucky enough to have experienced a few full-blown happiness from time to time. You do believe it with all your heart and you have faith that it will happen to you again one day; you just realize you need to start to choose it wisely. Permitting yourself for happiness to a certain limit. After the heart realizes what it's done, then the head follows suit, making you panic and torn between taking a million steps backward or finally lifting your chin up and walking forward. 


As a result, you're back to phase one; to try to curl up that smile; to cut off your laughter short; to calm the flutter of expectation in your chest; to avert your gaze from the person when you realize just how content you feel just by being in their presence. Literally biting your lip so whatever rush of words that's coming up next won't ruin anything. And you just keep on thinking; word vomit rolling around in your brain, thinking just how much you dislike happiness for making you hold on to a certain thought; how it digs the deepest layer in you and stir something inside you awake; how smiling and laughing freely makes you scared shitless; how you wish there aren't so many factors affecting your mood; how relieved you feel when you've crossed that thin rope with both arms outstretched in perfect balance despite the many voices, the many opinions shouting to your ear left and right that can easily change your perception. 


But most of all, most of all, you can't help wondering how all of this, however bothering and toxic and cruel and dangerous it may be, has actually made you sit down for the past half an hour to dedicate an entire blog post just to rant on and on and on about how you've been trying to avoid the nine-letter word....and failing miserably.