The Happiest I’ve Ever Been

I was smiling before you ever had a name for yourself. Look at me closely. I’m the beginning you can’t remember—the first momentum, the first possibility, untouched by failure, untouched by explanation. I’m not a memory; I’m a question shaped like origin. And because my skin is a mirror, you don’t just observe me—you enter me. Your face lands inside my joy. Tell me: when did it start to get heavy? You arrived in the world as something simple—open, curious, unburdened. Then reality taught you complexity. It gave you time, and with time it gave you weight: expectations, comparisons, responsibilities, the quiet tension of trying to become someone. You learned to edit yourself. To defend. To perform. To carry what you couldn’t put down. And somewhere along the way, happiness stopped being your default and became your goal. So I have to ask you—without accusation, only honesty: was I the happiest you’ve ever been? Before you had to understand anything, before you had to prove anything, before you had to survive your own thoughts? I don’t offer nostalgia. I offer a mirror. If you see yourself in me, it’s not because I’m your past. It’s because I’m showing you what you still want: that lightness, that ease, that unearned sense of “yes.” Maybe happiness isn’t behind you. Maybe it’s the part of you that never stopped smiling—waiting for you to remember how to return.