Happy Place

by Emily Henry

My best friends taught me a new kind of quiet, the peaceful stillness of knowing one another so well you don’t need to fill the space. And a new kind of loud: noise as a celebration, as the overflow of joy at being alive, here, now.

You are in all of my happiest places. You are where my mind goes when it needs to be soothed.

Things change, but we stretch and grow and make room for one another. Our love is a place we can always come back to, and it will be waiting, the same as it ever was. You belong here.

What was school if not a chance to earn your worth? To prove, again and again, that you were measurably good. One more deal I struck with a disinterested universe: If I’m good enough, I’ll be happy. I’ll be loved. I’ll be safe.

Your job doesn’t have to be your identity. It can just be a place you go, that doesn’t define you or make you

Like even when something beautiful breaks, the making of it still matters.

I want to enjoy it while it’s happening, not just for where it might get me eventually.