Scars remind us that the past is real

So, as emo-sounding as that little headline is, I decided I still like it. Once I get past the wrist-slashing, silent-tears-in-the-night image it initially inflicts, logically, it is important sometimes to have visible or otherwise striking reminders that painful things happened. Especially if you're like me and tend to forget before you forgive.

And that sentiment shouldn't be limited to your Sad Face History. It'd be cool if good things left scars, too, but I guess people just have to settle to take it upon themselves to keep little mementos and personal souvenirs from the happy times to give them a more lingering aftertaste.

Actually, have you ever noticed how easy it is to get wound up in trying to be constantly happy, yet considered the fact that happiness is the only emotional state which we expect to be able to cling to for long periods of time? It's not like we try to force ourselves to live in a constant state of surprise or pity or fear. We tend to unthinkingly accept every other emotion as transient and fleeting, but for some reason we think that happiness not only can but should be caught and retained like an endangered panda.

Of course, the unconscious logic may simply be that if SOME emotion has to be our status-quo state, why not happiness? It'd probably give you less ulcers than trying to forever embody paranoia. But do we really even have status-quo emotional bases? Is it too weird to think that we're never really in the clutch of just one emotion, but simultaneously encompass several, which independently wane?

Currently I Am:
Happy that the weather looks like a Disney spring
Annoyed that history repeats itself
Confused by noises coming from the hallway
Freaked out that I'm 2.5 months away from being 25% done with college