Makeshift Happiness

What do you call this moment of being displaced? Where you are in a familiar place, with familiar people, but all you can feel is this unfamiliarity with the circumstance you are currently presented? This novel uneasiness that develops slowly and gnawing at your heart; living in the darkest pit of your head. Something discomfiting that is caused by being in a transitional condition. Perhaps the worst thing about this is its existence rather than the way it feels.

Truthfully, it is something that I have never felt before, since even though I went through numerous temporary occurrences throughout my life, I always have something that I could keep it from consuming the more sane part of my mind. And gratefully, it left me, until now.


Some people may have been going through something similar to this in their entire life. Purposeless, undirected, aimless. For some people it is no longer a transitional condition, but a permanent solution for the uncertain future, or the unsettling past. They create this makeshift happiness in which the feeling itself is fleeting, shallowly rooted, easily plucked. Something created in the darkness, born out of the shadows of the mind; tricking itself into thinking that it is happiness and it is going to stay for a long time. But it won't, because it is not happiness. It can never be. Before long the soul will want something more. Something a bit more fulfilling, permanent and ethereal. Something that would be nurturing for you if you take care of it. It is not the healthiest way to live.

And I don't want that. I don't want to be stuck in the maze inside my mind, trying to escape while barely able to breathe in air that is full of defeat. The dimly-lighted labyrinth full of familiar sadness and regrets would only serve as a prison of my own soul. Without sunshine and air, what would become of a tree? Without hope and love, what would become a soul?

Tell me how to properly be in a permanent situation, other than death.

[Kristen Lozano]