how I feel right now

You know how once in a while, when you’re out for a hike or something, and you’re just happily, mindlessly hiking away, chattering and popping gummi bears and laughing and doing nonsense, and then—all of a sudden—you come upon something that takes your breath away?

Maybe it’s a crystal clear lake framed by jagged mountains perfectly capped with snow that twinkles in the afternoon sunlight.

Or maybe it’s a mama deer proudly watching her baby munch on food in a clearing in the woods, surrounded by dancing wildflowers, and when they hear your laughter, their heads raise to look at you…but they look you straight in the eyes, and you all just gaze at each other for a few moments, as if you share a secret or some other common understanding.

Or maybe it’s an expected meteor shower on a crisp winter’s night, when the sky lights up with the magical fairie lights of a thousand shooting stars.

Whatever it is, it is beauty, and it is fleeting, and it reaches right into your soul and grabs onto your heart, and you feel its warmth surge to the furthest parts of your body—and before you even have time to make some exclamation about what you’re seeing, and how incredible it is…it’s over.

It’s gone.

And, for a moment, you even wonder if it was real at all.

But then you feel the apples of your cheeks reaching for your eyes, and you remember that you are smiling, grinning at something that was indeed real, and you have a sort of happy sadness creep into your heart—happy to have witnessed it and experienced it, but sad that it’s gone. And you wonder if you’ll ever see anything that beautiful again for the rest of your life.

And, to be honest, you’re not sure that you will.

That, my friends, is how I feel right now.