Has it ever happened to you that one day you wake up under some sort of emotional cloud every single shade of gray even though you never even felt a wind blowing it in? One moment you are positive and excited about life. You are motivated to make great changes to increase your health in body and spirit. There is a lightness about you and your surroundings that offers a sweet simplicity you dare not question, but just enjoy. You feel yourself riding a wave of productiveness, and everything around you can qualify as "nice." Next thing you know, you feel almost a physical pain for your mental disturbance that leapt out at you from behind a tree you never noticed. All of a sudden, though nothing specific has happened and all the lovely details are still in tact that once brought you joy, you find yourself heartbroken and terrified. It's like the color was drained from your eyes and life has a dullness that weighs so heavily on your heart, you don't know if you should cry or bury yourself beneath your covers until the sunlight actually draws you from your bed with new hopes of happiness and renewal.

I was doing great. The new year hit, and I was on a roll I've never experienced. I was excited about everything. I started the website, I began classes, I read all my books, I worked out regularly. I felt a rejuvenation inspired by the release of 2001's unfamiliarity and 2002's incoming of a routine life I knew and loved so well. Suddenly, without warning, a pall slipped over my face, and I feel burdened and lifeless. I feel stupid. I can't understand what I'm reading for my classes. This negativity burned into my skin, and I feel scarred and deteriorated. My dreams felt fabricated and ingenuine, and I lost a sense of purpose. I don't mean that I stopped thinking life was worth living, but it was more that life seemed to stop moving even though time continued along on its way.

I thought about how stupid I am to proud that I've written a few unfinished lyrics when there are talented people out there who write song and after song of pure passion and genius, but never make it anywhere. I thought about the people who are successful in their careers, be it glamorous or not, and how hard they worked to get where they are. I thought about how much they deserved what they have earned. Then I thought about the people out there who worked just as hard and are still struggling with their bills and their senses of self-growth. I think about how little I do for myself, how little I work towards a future because of how aimless I feel. I think that I don't deserve great things.

I'm realizing the hideousness of regret. What if I chose the wrong path and always wish I had done what I didn't have the courage to do? I spent my entire adolescence thinking I was going to be a Broadway star, but I haven't even taken the much needed voice lessons, and I have nothing but high school musicals to put on a resume. Life is hard work, and I've done nothing but cruise. I have not been thrown a curveball yet, and I know one is coming, and I know I'm going to crash so hard because I've had no experience in trying to pick myself up off the floor after being thrown down to it by a force that is so painful tears can get lost behind my eyes. People ride this off as classic senioritis, but it feels like the world is losing its air.

What happens when the only thing that has consistently brought a smile to your face everyday for months ceases? Where does that smile go and the happiness that stood faithfully behind it? Where will I find that happiness again?