It's the simple things.

Sometimes it's easy to get caught up in what is not quite right in my life. It can be all too easy to be consumed by feelings of sadness and loneliness and forget to appreciate the simple pleasures in life.

While I'm in the midst of searching for some kind of happiness in my life, I sometimes can only see the things that are making me unhappy, but I sometimes take pleasure in simple moments that I don't think many people always take the time to notice.

Something as simple as the smell of the rain or the beauty of leaves falling from trees and the peaceful movements of a stream. Or something as simple as someone smiling and saying hello and a silly joke made by a professor or  a good song. I'm not blind to these things. There are still things that bring me pleasure and small moments of joy and put a smile on my face.

But I'm still looking for something and I can't really feel true happiness or joy until I find it. I don't know what it is, exactly, but I know that I'm missing something that leaves me feeling a little empty. And sometimes that emptiness consumes me and I just want to find the something that will make it go away.

But that emptiness isn't everything. I know that. And I know I can't let it consume me. And I won't. Because I know I can be a better person than that. There are so many great things in life and I will not be ignorant of that no matter how broken I am.

I know that life is a mix of happiness and sadness and you can't really have one without the other. You can't know happiness until you've known sadness and pain. Everyone will be broken at some point in their lives and that can be such a good thing because brokenness can lead you to search for something better and you will appreciate so much more.

There are times when I am absolutely certain that there is something great waiting for me. There is some small part of me that knows that and feels it down to my very core. I can do good things. I know it. But maybe I just need to work through this and come out of it stronger than before.

I am not entirely hopeless. Not always. While there are moments when I feel like I will never get out of this, there are also moments when that small part of me knows better.