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I’ve been reflecting more on happiness and sadness lately and in wonderment at how the two rivers of emotions can run together side by side. Sometimes, the water from one streams into the other and they intersect into shallow pools of time. Other times, they weave in back and forth until the line between them blurs.

We’d like to think that you are either happy or sad all at once– always just one or the other. But I’m finding that to not be true for me.  This weekend I experienced it in a surprising way. I found my self smiling, content, and was just busy enough to feel productive but free enough to relax after a long work week. In the moment I was not hyper-aware of feeling this way, which in my mind is even better. I wasn’t forcing happiness, I was just living and being happy was a by-product.

Towards the middle of Sunday, a sorrowful ache began to bubble up beneath the stream. Perhaps it was triggered by a sad story in the book I was reading, perhaps not. Regardless, it was now a part of my consciousness and I began to worry that I was somehow sabotaging my happiness, that I wasn’t allowing what I rightfully deserve.

After the ache trickled down, I realized that it was just the streams intersecting. I was both happy and sad at the same time. And that was okay. That momentary feeling didn’t wipe out my previous contentedness, it just made it look different.

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