Of all things that can happen to a person, becoming happier is the most challenging of all. At first, it seems to be a distant goal, unreachable, the proverbial pot of gold, even a smidge of it seems to make the most ambitious of us scoff. And then, you find yourself wasting a sunny Sunday, and instead of a picnic, planned in the most excruciating detail, you choose to do laundry, and then, you have some coffee, and sit for hours, stopping only for a peck here, a stray kiss there. It occurs to you just how frighteningly easy happiness seems, how fleeting and ephemeral the glee of it all is, as if it were a delicate trinket from a faraway place, ready to shatter at the first touch of an unsuspecting guest. It appears uncomfortably fragile as you sit on the couch for a little bit of infinity, and yet, there it is.
And that is where you stop, thinking if it is here, then I must let it be, undisturbed, unbothered. I must feign aloofness. I must not let it know about my agency, about how I, too, can do things, can break things. I must pretend to be a character in the background of the most delightful day, continuing to move about in an apartment—one of many—and be a person—one of many—and let the day turn into the night, and the night into the morning, sticking to the script, forevermore.