I’m a pretty neurotic person. Worrying about anything–from the possibility of having an aneurysm to whether I cooked the meat well enough to whether I’m good enough to doubting the soundness of having a kid and making him/her live in the world at its current state–has always been a constant in my life. Call it my “guilty pleasure”.

Sometimes it’s worse than just the worrying. The smallest things could change my disposition throughout the day. I get upset and snap at Timmy for the silliest of reasons. Oftentimes, perhaps more frequently than I prefer, I get the blues. Timmy knows this, lives with this, and it’s not easy to see my gloomy disposition affecting him. I try my best to not let it show, but it never works since he knows me too much.

“Talk to me.” That’s what he would always say.

And we do. At times right away. Other times, I can’t get myself to tell him the things that bother me until right before bedtime. During those times we’d stay up and lose sleep to talk things out. It doesn’t always fix things, but it always makes it better.

When the bad days come, though, it takes just one look at his sad face and the blues start to dissipate. Not because I enjoy seeing his pain. I’m not schadenfreude-ing my own Timmy! Let me explain better.

It’s because seeing him sad is torture. And if me being more cheerful would replace his frown with a smile, I’d do it as quickly as I can. Sometimes it’s instant. Sometimes it takes a lot of work and will.

When it gets really hard, Timmy reminds me that it’s okay to be sad. He only has one request whenever it happens: to not push him away.

And he is right. It’s okay to be sad and gloomy at times. That’s a part of life. Having someone to love and love you so much won’t get you a free pass from that.

What’s not okay is making the other person feel alone.

So, you know, if you love someone, try to avoid that. Not just with your significant other, but even with your family and friends. There aren’t many worse things that you could do to the people you love than isolating them. Life is too short to spend most of it alone.

We have death for that. :3