I'm the stranger in Paradise. And I thought I didn't belong here.

I am happy to have stood here.

- Endre Tót

Dear mankind,

I am happy. For the first time in my adult life, I am happy.
Not giddy happy. Not a scared little joy that might run back into its cave and hide at the first sign of trouble. Because that's how I rolled, y'all. I was scared to be happy. So I refused to be happy.

But like I said before, happiness isn't everything. I realized that again, today, just now, when I was crouched on the bathroom floor, crying my eyes out and then, suddenly, laughing.
Because there's another feeling. I first noticed it some odd two weeks ago.

It started somewhere on the left side of my nose. At first I thought it was a Smell.
Fall is approaching radically here, painting trees and making them look like fire and saying goodbye to the bees and the birds.
So this was what I smelt. Autumn, right there in my face, beneath my nose, beneath my skin.
The Feeling - or Smell - wasn't coming to me. It was inside me.
I'm not sure who or what put it there, and typically with my usual complaints about giving into unknown, possibly good feelings, my Brain tried to scare it away with dark thoughts and talked to it a deep raspy voice, telling the Feeling that I wouldn't just let it in, that it would have to fight and prevail to earn its welcome.
The Feeling fought and struggled, and stayed.

The Brain became a little weary. Then there suddenly was the itsy-bitsy bit of Hope growing in my stomach, and again the Brain complained and used sharp objects and hard words and cold stares to frighten the sprout of Hope.
But the little bit of Hope just laughed at that grumpy little girl with the mean words and balled fists, and kept growing.
Sucker, the Brain said, and yelled at it.
But the Hope smiled and said very well and kept growing.
So the Brain turned away, like it does from such things, and looked at the Heart, which it had ignored for some time, to look for help in the fight against the hope.

Now, this the Brain hadn't expected. Because the Heart had heard about the Smell of autumn that wasn't really a Smell and had taken a liking to it, touched the feeling and it had been love at first sight, if you believe in something like that (the Brain doesn't, but the Heart always had its doubts).

The Brain, of course, struggled against the connection between the Heart and the Feeling, but it was too late.
Reason! the brain yelled. See reason! This will never work!
The Heart started singing songs from the 80s and ignored the Brain.

Meanwhile the Hope had grown into something more. It had grown into Knowing.
You see, just because we start out as a certain something, doesn't mean we have to stay that way. We can all change. The Heart and the Hope are not very deterministic in that sense.
So the Hope grew into Knowing, and the Knowing was stronger than ever.

The Smell meanwhile had spread into my sinuses and down my throat, coming closer to the Heart.
The Brain became unsure. What is this? it thought. There is no reason, no rationality behind this! This is not how we work!

At some point, while I was on that bathroom floor today, the Heart and the Smell and the Hope that turned into Knowing all connected. The morphed into each other, complementing the other ones on their strength, nodding, patting their shoulders.
They became a team, tough to take on and very determined.
The Brain, the little idiot, gave up, eventually.
Some day, it said, we'll talk about this. We'll find out how this happened.
Very well, said the Heart and the Smell and the Hope that had turned into Knowing.
We will, one day. But not now. Now this is Us, we are Queens. We are taking charge.

So, this is me. Arrogantly enough, I thought of myself as a Phoenix.
I fell.
I burnt.
I was burnt badly, and I burned myself even worse, literally, and I was only ashes and dust and didn't serve any purpose.
And then there was a glimmer that came from a connection the three Queen inside me made.
And I'm not flying now, because when you fly you are too high to see things for what they really are.
Rather, I'm floating, close enough to the surface, to everything I need to know, but far away enough to know that it doesn't have to touch me, unless I want to.

I also realize that I did this, mainly, on my own.
There are people who've helped me, tremendously, and sometimes in a funny way, and I want to thank them, not because it sounds good or because I feel like I have to but because I want to.
There was an old woman in the city the other day, who looked at me, smiled, and then nodded. I want to thank her.
There are my parents.
There's Pip.
My Literature teacher.
My friends.
I will walk up to those people and tell them yes. Now I see.

Because most people in your life just pass you.
It's like you're at a busy train station.
All these people pass you, but sometimes someone catches your eye, and you smile at each other, or maybe you drop something and someone picks it up for you and says don't worry about it, and you suddenly don't worry. Sometimes these people will steal whatever you dropped and run away. But there's no point going after them. Just make up for what you lost. Because you have to loose yourself to find yourself. And sometimes you won't like what you find, but more often, and this is what the three Queens tell me, you'll love it, and it will make the world a better place.