It was hard to remember the last time I was happy.

I mean, truly happy.

We smile, we laugh, but when are we ever at the point where we feel complete and utter bliss?

I know I did when I was young.

We went to that park - my dad, my brother, and I.

We would run.

We would ride our bikes.

And for some reason, jumping across that small ditch from pavement to grass, grass to pavement,

was something I couldn't get enough of.

Yes, I was five, and it’s easy to be amused by these small things,

but I really was truly happy.

I don’t see them anymore.

Either one of them.

At least not as much as before.

Things had changed and it was almost as if my feelings had become less present.

It became so much easier to be numb.

But then there was you.

We went back to that same park, you and I.

The same park from when I was a bright-eyed little girl with unbrushed blonde hair and scrapes on my knees.

Smiles in my eyes and fullness in my heart.

And when we went there, I felt the same.

I jumped back and forth across the same small ditch from years ago.

Pavement to grass, grass to pavement.

And you did the same.

But this time it wasn’t the mere sensation of jumping that gave me joy.

It was you.

You were what I couldn’t get enough of.

We sat on a bench under a shower tree,

its flower petals scattered on the ground from the lightest gust of wind.

They danced and fluttered in the wind.

We watched as the sun went down.

The sky turning from yellow, to orange, to all the pink and lilac colors, to blood red, and finally complete darkness,

and we cried.

You said it was because you were so extremely happy, and, I knew I was crying because I felt

exactly the same.

Never had I felt so content and so safe.

Wrapped up tightly in an untangle-able web of skin and tears.

You held me and we kept crying.

Stopping briefly between breaths to say the words “I love you”.

Over and over again.

And that’s the first time I’d ever really felt loved.

Truly loved.

And the first time I’d ever really felt happy,

truly happy,

In a long time.