There’s a quiet relief that comes when you finally stop trying to categorize life into neat little boxes. Good or bad. Happy or sad. Strong or struggling. We spend so much time asking ourselves which one it is, as if life owes us a single, clean answer. But it rarely does. Most days don’t arrive labeled. They arrive mixed.
Life isn’t either/or. It’s both.
It’s the kind of joy that catches you off guard—the kind that shows up in small, ordinary moments and somehow feels enormous. A laugh that comes from deep in your chest. A look from someone you love that says more than words ever could. A sudden awareness that, right now, things are okay. Maybe even beautiful.
And then, sometimes in the very same breath, it’s the weight of heartbreak. The ache you carry quietly. The disappointment you didn’t see coming. The loss that changes the way you look at everything afterward. Not the dramatic kind that demands attention, but the heavy, private kind that settles in and stays.
It’s shouting with excitement when something finally works out. When the news is good. When the plan comes together. When you feel proud of yourself for a moment and allow it. And it’s also whispering “I can’t do this” when the noise fades, when you’re alone with your thoughts, when confidence slips through your fingers and doubt takes its place.
Life is laughing at 2am for reasons that make no sense in the morning. The kind of laughter that feels reckless and freeing, where time doesn’t matter and responsibilities feel far away. And it’s crying in the car with the radio turned down low, letting the tears come because holding them back feels harder than letting them fall.
It’s the good. And it’s the hard.
We’re often taught—subtly, sometimes loudly—that we should choose one. That if we’re grateful, we shouldn’t feel sad. That if we’re successful, we shouldn’t feel tired. That if we’re blessed, we shouldn’t feel overwhelmed. But that logic doesn’t hold up in real life. Gratitude and grief can sit at the same table. Strength and exhaustion can share the same body. Love can exist alongside frustration without canceling it out.
The in-between is where most of life actually happens. Not in the highlight reels or the breakdown moments, but in the ordinary spaces where emotions overlap. Where you’re doing your best, even when your best feels messy. Where you’re growing, even when it feels uncomfortable. Where you’re learning that two opposite feelings can be true at the same time—and that doesn’t mean you’re doing anything wrong.
There’s something deeply human about that tension. About holding joy in one hand and pain in the other and realizing you don’t have to drop either. You can celebrate and still ache. You can hope and still be afraid. You can move forward without having everything figured out.
And through it all—the ups and the downs, the laughter and the tears, the confidence and the doubt—it’s still yours.
Your life. Your story. Your days, unfolding exactly as they are.
That doesn’t mean every moment is easy or fair or understandable. But it does mean that even the hard parts are part of the gift. Not because pain is good, but because it shapes you. It deepens your empathy. It teaches you to notice the small joys more carefully. It reminds you that feeling deeply—both the light and the heavy—is a sign that you’re alive and engaged with your own life.
Maybe the goal isn’t to eliminate the hard or cling desperately to the good. Maybe the goal is to make room for all of it. To stop fighting the fact that life is layered. To stop apologizing for feeling too much or not enough. To accept that the beauty of this gift lies in its complexity.
Life isn’t asking you to choose a side. It’s inviting you to show up fully—to laugh when it’s time to laugh, to cry when it’s time to cry, and to trust that even in the in-between, you’re still exactly where you’re meant to be.
Life isn’t either/or.
It’s both.
Kenrick Vaz 