Somewhere Close to Happy

by Lia Louis

There’s something lovely about someone you love, liking someone else you love; seeing just what you see. It fills you up. Makes you feel proud. Validation that you found a good person in the world, all on your own.

can’t swallow them. Because the walls aren’t closing in anymore. They’re falling away, like a set, crashing, and shattering, leaving only reality – leaving only the truth. And it hurts to look at it, like looking at the sun.

it’s not until I stepped on the plane, saw the world below getting tinier and tinier as we rose into the sky, that I realised how stuck I have been, living in what is a tiny, barely-there speck on this earth. Dormant, even, because living is something I haven’t done for so long, not really. And I want to. As I felt us take off, home moving further and further from me, and now, as I look out to endless ocean and endless sky, I realise I really want to. I want to see places and do things and feel terrified but do it anyway. I don’t want to hide anymore. What’s that quote? The one about wanting to see the world, as much as you can, before it goes dark. That’s what I want. Because there is no darkness now. I left that behind twelve years ago. I want to start living in the light, where I can be seen.

‘Goodbyes are a privilege,’ says Hubble, putting his arm around me. ‘They are one of life’s gifts, not punishments.’