Life. Unbearable grief that is made deeper by the exquisiteness of the joy that it destroys. Agony. How do our frail souls bear it? The happiness that quakes inside and threatens to burst and the sorrow that tears and punches and aches. What is it about sorrow that is so beautiful? I read once in a story about a girl who felt the sorrow of the entire world in her girl-sized heart. She was so pure and innocent that each new grief knocked her over, consumed her, debilitated her—until she decided not to bear it anymore. And she took her own life in pursuit of a place where she would not feel. What stops me from following her there? Life. The current that wraps around my heart, pulsing with sorrow made more beautiful by the peace that envelopes it. Life is sorrow. Life is joy. And I cannot bear to pull myself out of its river. I yearn to experience it more, though it flows all over me, trying to soak it in even while I drown. I cannot wrench feeling from my heart, for it is woven into every fiber. It is my heart. And since I would not comprehend joy without understanding pain, I rejoice in my pain, because it means I can feel. Each tear in my heart heals, and each scar renders my heart more capable to love. And ‘to love’ is simply the verb form of ‘joy’.