I remember it like it were yesterday. A not-so-close friend of mine came up to me and told me that someone he knew said the things I write were good – but “too depressing”. Too sad.

I remember it like it were yesterday, because the minute he said that – with an air of stupid superiority – I took out my phone and deleted every single thing I had ever written. Every note, every blog post. It was almost a year before I started writing again.

A writer I admire a lot once said that people romanticize their pain to not feel as broken as they really are. They romanticize their pain, write poetry about it and bleed onto papers to morph their brokenness into something beautiful.

Something hit home when I watched her explain my insecurities so beautifully.

The positivity movement is a myth. It’s okay to feel blue and make art out of it – but it is not okay to immerse yourself in those waves, paint yourself a permanent blue and identify with it.

I wish I could take a flight and knock on that friend’s door and ask him – wouldn’t his brokenness the past year have been easier to deal with had he made art out of it? Wouldn’t it be better had he battled it out, waged war on those who had broken him? Wouldn’t it have been so much easier had he screamed, shouted at the unfairness of it all?

The positivity movement is a myth.

I feel things so deeply and I feel them all and I am so so proud of it.