the higher the {peak} ~. [meghan]

The water is striking, commanding, convincing as I watch my feet press into the strip of sand that I navigate. The light of the sun reflects across the curvature of the ocean, creating that interesting triangular shape of light across the water. Light winds make a lover of my hair, tussling it and curling it within itself, careless and random as if each was trying to learn the steps of a dance. As the autumn is approaching, the beach seems to get colder and more unappealing with each day that passes. In moments like these, it’s hard not to consider yourself useless. Looking at the sheer size of the ocean, your mortality and your weaknesses are nothing if not reiterated in your conscience. And this is why, in moments like this one, I feel more alive than ever. You cannot feel the full essence of life until you accept and embrace your inevitable and inescapable death.

As the tide comes in, I find myself surrounded with images of her. Her eyes are existent and yet not all, everywhere yet nowhere all at once. Her lips curl into a slight smile, the kind that plays on her lips but doesn’t dance in her eyes: the one she always wore. Happiness, she said, is for the weak. A beautiful mess, she was. The kind of girl that could change the world, but instead she let the world change her. She let it morph her into something that she was not: sad. It broke her down, deteriorated her entire being until she was nothing less but an empty shell housing a broken soul. I had tried to fix her, but you can’t put the puzzle together if you don’t have the pieces. She didn’t have a reason to be saved, she said, didn’t have a need.

And I am just as broken as she was. The sadness was like a disease, spreading from her heart to mine. I was once happy, before I met her. Or whatever “happy” means. Is happiness supposed to feel any different than if you weren’t? Does someone who’s constantly happy feel just the same as one who is constantly unhappy? Do they get used it to it, let it consume them to the point where it feels like nothing more than a dull numbness of the mind and heart? There has to be at least one person that can answer these questions, someone who has visited both sides of the scale. The higher the peak, the longer the fall. At least when you’re at the bottom, you don’t have to worry about the plunge.