"Your joy is your sorrow unmasked."

—Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet

We often try to hold joy and sorrow as separate experiences—one to pursue, one to avoid. Self-will can spend considerable energy trying to secure more of the first and less of the second. The idea that they might be two faces of the same thing can feel counterintuitive, even unwelcome.

And yet there may be something in it. The things that can break our hearts are usually the things we love. The grief that surprises us often arrives through the same door as beauty. When sorrow appears, it may not always mean something has gone wrong. Sometimes it may simply mean something has mattered—which is its own kind of gift.