A quiet reckoning with the expectations we wear and the joy we fake.
When was the last time you were truly happy?
No—
not the curated kind.
Not the smile you wore for someone else’s comfort.
Not the polite laugh that tasted like performance.
Not the checklist joy: house, job, partner, post, repeat.
I mean the kind of happiness that sneaks up on you in bare feet.
The kind that doesn’t make sense but fills your ribs like breath you forgot you were holding.
The kind that doesn’t ask for an audience.
Doesn’t post itself.
Doesn’t need to be liked to be real.
Most days, we confuse peace with silence, and silence with defeat.
You tell yourself you’re content. That this is what adulthood looks like—responsibility, stability, being “grateful.”
You wear that word like a bandage.
But underneath?
There’s a pulse of something unsaid.
A throb you ignore until it bruises.
You smile at strangers. You meet deadlines. You show up.
And in between the commutes and compromises,
you start to wonder if you buried yourself in the crud of being acceptable.
The barrage is constant—
what you should want, who you should be, how you should smile.
But no one ever asks if you’re still in there.
Not really.
Not the version of you that danced alone in the kitchen at 1 a.m.
Not the you who found joy in dumb little things that didn’t need justification.
Not the version of you that wasn’t tired.
You’re silently screaming.
Every day.
And you do it with perfect posture.
Because to speak it—
to say “I’m not okay”
feels like betrayal.
Like failure.
Like you’re too much and not enough, all at once.
But here’s the quiet truth:
Maybe you haven’t been happy in a long time.
Maybe you don’t even remember how it felt.
But maybe that question—when was the last time you were truly happy?—
isn’t meant to shame you.
Maybe it’s a breadcrumb.
A way back.
Not to the person you were before the world smoothed your edges,
but to the one still flickering beneath the noise.
The one who still believes in joy,
even if they haven’t seen it in a while.
🪞Reflective Prompt
Take a moment.
Find a scrap of paper, the back of a receipt, or the notes app on your phone.
When was the last time you felt joy that wasn’t expected of you, sold to you, or shared online?
What did it feel like in your body?
What part of you still remembers?
Memoirs of Madness 