The Unspoken Guilt of Happiness

I am happy. Genuinely, deeply happy. I laugh often. I plan for the future. I am dating now. But my happiness comes in between waves of suffocating guilt.

Sometimes I feel like my happiness is betraying DT. When I catch myself smiling too much, a pang of remorse hits—how dare I enjoy this, when he can’t?

I know, rationally, that DT wouldn’t want me to live in perpetual sorrow. He'd want me to find peace, to live a full life. But the heart isn't always rational. It carries the memories of a love that once was, and sometimes those echoes sound like disappointment.

This new happiness is a beautiful, terrifying thing. It's a testament to my resilience, to my capacity for love, even after unimaginable loss. But it’s also a constant balancing act between the present and the past, trying to honor a love that shaped me while embracing a love that’s making me whole again.

The guilt is always there, a shadow under the brightest sun. Maybe it always will be. But I'm learning to carry it, alongside my happiness, in the hopes that one day, the guilt will waver.