Do you ever just find yourself wanting to cry in the middle of laughing? To all of a sudden bawl your eyes out and hold onto the person beside you and stay in their arms until you are able to reassure yourself that they will always be there for you like this? Like, imagine, for a moment, that you are with your favorite people in the world, people that you have been longing to see all year.

People that you grew up your entire life with. People that you dressed up in cheap bedazzled princess gowns with. People that you cooked plastic pancakes, pepperoni pizza, and pie with. People that you manically slashed invisible swords to fight off invisible monsters with. People that you gathered around the dinner table to devour a meal of steaming rice and salted fish with. People that you gave pitchy and underrehearsed musical performances from the High School Musical soundtrack with. People that you made professionally unprofessional home videos with. People that you pretended to be survivalists out in the backyard with. People that you waved goodbye to your childhood with. People that you grew into adults with. People that you shared your real-world fears with. People that you ranted about the unfairness of life with. People that you proved proximity is not the same as closeness with. People that came to mind when life got a little too hard. People that you needed when you were sitting in your room at the day's end, crying alone. People that you wished could be there as you looked back at the photos that showed better days when things weren't so hard and life was much kinder.

And when you finally got to see them after all this time, it didn't hit you right away. It reached you a couple of hours later, when you all sat in a criss-cross applesauce circle around a pile of assorted chips and gummy candy and you broke into your first bout of laughter. It reminded you that you haven't felt this much unadulterated joy in a long time and for just how long and how bad you've been yearning to feel this way again. It made you so sad and so happy at the same time. And as you laughed with your head thrown back, your mouth opened wide, and your hands steadying your stomach, you felt the sudden urge to burst out in tears. To shut your crescent eyes tightly, scrunch the bridge of your nose, and let the ends of your lips fall down with the weight of three clear facts that had finally reached you: that you have felt alone for a long time, that it feels so good to be whole again, and that you are terrified of turning back into that small, sad girl who sat in her empty room and looked up at the moon every night wishing to be anywhere but where she was.