Why does my grief about love feel more real than my happiness about it?

Mirabai knew this paradox intimately. She wrote some of her most luminous verses in separation and longing—not because unhappiness is more poetic, but because grief demands precision. When you're grieving, you can't perform. You can't pretend the loss doesn't matter. You're forced into honesty. Happiness, especially new happiness, can sometimes hide behind social script or the relief of having 'solved' something. But the grief—the absence, the change, the way someone rewires your body and then leaves—that breaks you open in a way that feels like truth. Here's what matters: both are real. The happiness that contains the awareness of loss, the joy that knows how quickly things change, the love that's conscious of its own fragility—that's often the deepest happiness, and it *feels* more real because it's not defended against reality. You're not numb to how precious and temporary this is. Don't mistake intensity of feeling for validity. But also: don't dismiss the grief as more 'true' than the tenderness. Mirabai loved fiercely in both states. The examined heart holds room for paradox. Let yourself feel the weight of what you've lost, and also the weight of what you still have.