Some days things are just heavy. You know what I mean? Like when you’re washing the dishes while your whole family is around the dinner table, and they’re all laughing and telling stories, but it all feels too loud. With every word they say, you realise maybe you’re just not as happy as them – and that begins to make you feel shaky. Because if all these people you love are bursting at the seems with joy, why aren’t you as well? Not because your life is miserable and you’ve had the most tragic things happen to you, simply just because you feel so many things at once and it is becoming too heavy for you.

You want to be laughing with them, and you want to join in on the conversation, but you just really can’t. It’s as if – if you were to say a word right now, you would literally break into pieces. Because there are so many moment’s you’re holding onto that is making everything feel so heavy. Like the time you had made plans with that friend, and they forgot, so you ended up spending yet another night at home alone – you felt that. Or when you excitedly spoke about that thing you so deeply care for, and no one must have really heard you because no one even responded – you felt that too. And how could you forget that time in high school you defended that friend that everyone was unfairly attacking, but everyone just ended up laughing at you? Or that time when you saw that group of friends from class you really thought liked you, out together without even an invite – you really felt that.

And the more you think about it, it becomes a collection of many moments that just feel so incredibly heavy. Then there’s another moment, and another, and another – and it just doesn’t stop. Maybe it makes you think you’re not good enough, or that people are incredibly horrible – and the excuses and reasonings pile up. And all these moments, that were just moments, become heavy burdens of loathing towards something or someone.

That’s the thing we don’t realise – all these heavy moments were never ours to carry. The Light was always meant to carry it for us. Because when we carry it all by ourselves, the darkness wins, and makes these heavy moments into something they were never meant to be. These moments are just moments, and they may be heavy, but if you give it to The Light, you could be laughing with your family too. I think I’m going to give over my heavy to The Light, and I hope you do too. There’s a whole bunch of love and light we should be carrying instead.

By Mila Ottavini