Happiness

Sometimes I can't help but wonder if all the happiness I've felt in the last year was some sort of cover-up that I've begun to believe so much that I don't even know what's real anymore. Because how is it possible that after all this time, I'm only now happy? And so happy that sometimes I think I could explode with it? In a place where no one knows me, and I get so stressed and frustrated and feel like I couldn't possibly last another minute. Only to wake up the next day to know that I am living the most wonderful life I could have imagined for myself. And the way the light is coming up behind the ugly flat buildings and beautiful hills makes me appreciate everything I've ever been given, both the good and the bad-- because I'm here, somehow. And soon I'll say goodbye, because life seems to be a series of imminent farewells that will sometimes circle back to delighted hellos but there's no way to know. And if I knew now who was gone forever, maybe I would not want to know anyway.
I have loved so many people, things, places, emotions. I sometimes can't believe it was the truth, and that it wasn't a fabrication of a feeling to make myself suitable for loving and for life. Because I'd rather feel excitement and elation in even the most mundane world than to be pessimistic any longer. And maybe it was an act, because I was falling apart, and I needed to be someone different. Or I grew up, and realized that everything I depended on would fail eventually, and adaptation is simpler in terms of love and acceptance than of futile resistance and anger.
But maybe not. Maybe I just fell in love with the feeling of wind on my face, and eyes wide-open, and with all those who have and will love me while I wander recklessly for a while, feeling for the first time that I'm free.