Perhaps They are Necessary

Most days are laughing days.
Sometimes singing days.
And occasionally a dancing day.

Every once in a while, though, I have a "What If" day.

"What If" days are the days when everything you see has a tint of gray in it.
They are serious.
Everything is serious.

They are the days when you look back and think,
"Have I wasted my life away?"
"Am I wasting my life away?"

You listen to others talking about their victories.
Their struggles and their pains and think,
"Why don't I have any triumphs to share?"

It's on those days that you wish that you could be someone else.

You'd be your best friend.
Your role model.
Even your worst enemy.

Their lives seem so flawless,
with their blue love and tears.
But even as you think that, you try to remind yourself that it isn't true.

But you still like to think that their lives are perfect.
It's easier to let that thought simmer.
Stir it until it gets thick.

Thick and it gets stuck in your head.

You spend the whole night wondering.
Wondering if there's a way to go back in time.
To change who you are.

You wonder if you can change who you are now.
But it seems unlikely.
Impossible, even.

Your heart beats slower.
You can't help but hate yourself in that moment.
Tears seem imminent, but even they seem to have abandoned you.

Your eyes close.
Just for a moment, and suddenly you find yourself waking up to a ray of the sunrise.

Its warmth meanders through the curtains just to find you.
Only you.
No one else.

You wake up and everything is in full color again.
The gray?
Just a nightmare of the day before.

Perhaps those days are necessary.
Necessary to remind us that our life isn't always going to be perfect,
that sometimes you are going to feel left behind.

The next morning though, inexplicably, you always feel okay again.

Not necessarily good,
but okay.
Ready to live some more.