Euphoria and Where she Lies Blair Morilly
Joy. The euphoria that comes from being joyful. These are the things we all strive for in life. Whether that be
money, power, sex, influence, experience, it looks different for every person. But rarely we stop and wonder what true joy means, even while we spend all our time striving towards the things we think we want. For me, it was eye-opening to sit back and really indulge myself in what brought me the most excitement and joy.
Often when we search for happiness, we are confronted with what makes us unhappy, unfulfilled, and the importance of needing to change. I can understand how hard it is for all of us to authentically and honestly call ourselves joyful. But is it worth pursuing? Is it fulfilling? Life-changing? Absolutely.
For me, euphoria can present herself in many different places. For example, the situations associated with freedom. I remember walking out from the Vancouver airport on New Year’s morning, feeling the most alive
and free I have ever felt. I was utterly alone, and definitely felt that way (it wasn’t one of those situations
where it was like ‘the city or the landscape kept me company’, it was just me out there), but for the first time, in that moment, there was no one else in the world that I could rely on but myself. And that’s a pretty rare
thing to feel for someone like me. Someone who has lived in the same city her whole life, surrounded by her immediate family and friends. My home and the bubble I grew up in sheltered me, and this was the first time
I willingly surpassed my horizons to discover what life was like beyond them. To confront who I really was, on my own.
And boy did I find what I was looking for. I experienced what it was like to feel lost and afraid. To feel liberated and totally independent. Admittedly though, at times, the loneliness was unbearable. It’s hard to match the feeling of being in a fresh environment, with all this opportunity for new people and new
experience and still feeling invisible. But the joy of exploration, of the discovery of self, of facing your fears and throwing yourself into the unknown, trampled those moments of loneliness tenfold. It was the bravest
thing I have done so far, and I absolutely loved it. Euphoria visited me many times during those months, and I was always so glad when she did.
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