better.

It is never as drastic as snapping your fingers, but one day you wake up or look in the mirror or are sitting at a traffic light and you realize that you feel different. Different than the body-slogging, soul-tired, just-barely-eking-by 'normal' to which you've resigned yourself. 

And it feels like spring. 

You realize that this didn't just happen, that you worked for it. That even if on a minute-to-minute basis, nothing was different, on a week to week basis, you did the things and made the change. 

And maybe there's still a long way to go, but, really, maybe not. If happiness isn't a place you can arrive at, then maybe the isolated moments of happiness when they arrive, however fleeting, are what we're living for, anyway. 

It's belly-laughing during sign-language charades, or hearing your favorite song on the radio, when you're alone and can really belt it out. It's seeing the bulbs you planted last fall but maybe never truly believed would grow, poking out of the wet February earth. It's another mile at a faster pace than yesterday or a bright new robe for around-the-house lounging. 

And my god, it's all so imperfect that it would be easy to diminish and dismiss. 

But, one day, you don't. You don't diminish your life into a blur of status quo. You start noticing the little joys. 

And it feels like hope.