“What’s got ya’ down, Twi?”
Applejack’s thick drawl caused Twilight Sparkle’s ears to perk up. As she turned her head to face the emerald-eyed earth pony beside her, a part of her was surprised; she did not necessarily feel significantly different than she did on any other day, nor, after a quick self-evaluation of her body-language, was she really conveying that anything was wrong. Confused, she tilted her head to one side, raising an eyebrow as she returned her friend’s gaze. “Uhh… I’m sorry, I don’t really know what you mean?”
“Ya’ve been lots more quiet, lately,” Applejack stated bluntly, the stetson-clad mare shifting in her seat a touch so she could more easily face her friend. “Starin’ off into space, hardly ever leavin’ yer house ‘less we drag ya’ from it; Ah could be wrong, but Ah do like to think Ah have somethin’ of an eye fer this kind o’ thing, and somethin’ seems to be getting’ ya’ down.”
Twilight thought for a moment before looking off to the side, rolling Applejack’s words through her mind a few times. A sudden pang of anxiety presented itself mere moments after she turned away, but the lavender pony quickly shoved it down, running a hand through her hair as she looked out and across the field. “I… suppose I have been staying in more, yes, but nothing’s really wrong—at least… nothing I can point to immediately.”
It was a partial truth. It was true that Twilight did not really know what the matter with her was, but she did have her fears as to what it meant; fears that she would have much rather refused to acknowledge the existence of.
Applejack hummed, looking over at Twilight, and then off into the distance herself. The wheat was certainly a pretty sight at this time of year; she could definitely understand why someone would just want to sit and stare at it for many moments at a time. Twilight was not really that kind of girl, though, and as the orange pony pensively waited for her friend, she began to count the seconds in her mind.
“Ya’ just did it again, Twi,” Applejack giggled after the requisite amount of time had passed in her mind.
Twilight again turned to face her friend, tilting her head in confusion. “Did what?”
“Stared off into space,” the orange earth-pony responded simply. “Ya’ve been lookin’ at the wheat for a whole two minutes since ya’ last said anything.”
Twilight now raised both eyebrows out of surprise—it certainly had not felt quite that long. “…Are you sure? I… I could have sworn it was just for a few seconds.”
“Sure as the sun in the sky,” Applejack smiled. “Ah even counted this time.”
“What an accomplishment…” the lavender princess snickered as she shook her head. “…Seriously though, I’m sorry about that, I… didn’t realize I had lost track of time like that. I hope I haven’t been boring you?”
“Not at all!” the orange-furred mare laughed aloud, shaking her head. “That’s nothin’ to apologize for; Ah wasn’t exactly makin’ conversation muhself. Though…” Applejack turned to look into Twilight’s eyes once more, an empathetic smile on her muzzle, and kindness in her eyes. “…Ah’m not gonna pry, but if ya’ need to talk about it, mah ears are yours.”
Twilight did not notice it, but she instinctively began to withdraw into herself just a little bit more with her friend’s statement. She hugged her knees more tightly to her chest, and she leaned just a touch more forward such that her chin was almost on top of one of her legs; this was something that she had not wanted to talk about. She wanted to be able to solve it herself—to bring it to resolution of her own accord, not depending on the help of anyone else to do so. But, as she glanced over at the orange pony just beside her, she could not help but feel tempted to lean on her again… shameful though it felt to do. “I… I guess I’m just… I don’t even really know.”
The lavender mare sighed, releasing the tension from her muscles as she looked out at the wheat again. “Really, I… I don’t know what’s wrong, or what has me down, as you put it. I just… I know it’s there, but it eludes every attempt of mine to try and figure out what it is. Meanwhile, I’m watching myself slowly slip back into old habits, old ways, and… all kinds of things that are leaving me really, really scared… And so I don’t know what to do. I thought that I had gotten past all of this years ago, and that I wouldn’t really have to deal with all of it again like this. And so… now I’m wondering if maybe I didn’t actually make it as far as I thought I had.”
Applejack hummed aloud, scooting a bit closer to her friend. She reached a hand over and put it on her far shoulder, running it up and down a few times before retracting it, and returning the limb to her side. “Well… Ah can’t claim to know exactly what ya’ mean by ‘all o’ this,’ but Ah assume it has somethin’ to do with a couple o’ issues ya’ had in the past?”
Twilight nodded her head, hugging her legs tighter. “Yeah… I could go into detail with it all, but… it’s kind of hard to, since so much of it is just abstract thought that I can’t seem to put accurate words to…”
“It’s okay, ya’ don’t have to do that!” Applejack grinned. “Sometimes it’s harder to explain what we’re goin’ through than other times. Doesn’t mean what we’re experiencin’ is any less real or powerful; it just means that it might be a little bit more difficult to describe it to an outside ear.”
Twilight nodded her head. “I guess so, yeah… but it’s not really so much the actual issues themselves that are bothering me so much as opposed to what they’re doing to me, if that makes sense at all.” She shifted in place, releasing her legs from the vice grip of a hug she had been giving them. “It’s going to sound weird, but like, I’ve been dealing with these particular issues for long enough that it’s almost like routine. I have coping strategies that are healthy and that seem to work well enough, and it’s for that reason that I’m so, so confused as to why… it’s all affecting me so badly again. I have so much less energy to do the things I want to do, even though basically nothing about my life has changed, recently, and now it’s getting to a point where even my friends are noticing—and I want to solve it so that I’m not burdening others with my issues like this, but it’s… well, a vicious cycle. I dedicate energy to my issues, but then I don’t have energy to do the things I love or spend time with the ponies I love, which only leads me to feeling worse about how all of this is cutting into my life, which makes my issues worse, which means I have to dedicate more energy to them, and… you get the idea.”
Much to Twilight’s surprise, Applejack only tittered in response to what she said, wrapping her arm around the lavender mare and pulling her into a tight hug. “Twi, ya’ ever consider the idea that maybe, just maybe, yer a bit too hard on yerself?”
“Only every day,” the princess sighed. “But… can I really be easy on myself when things are affecting me like this, especially if I’ve already been through this once before?”
“’Course ya’ can, ya’ silly filly!” Applejack smiled, looking at her friend with a characteristic warmth that disarmed almost each and every one of the defenses the lavender mare had put up. “Yer lookin’ at things through a lens of needin’ to be perfect, Twi; yer actin’ like yer never supposed t’ let the things that bother ya’ show, and like not bein’ okay is not okay. For goodness sakes, girl, ya’ve gotta cut yerself some slack; ya’ may be a princess, but that don’t mean yer not a pony all the same. Expectin’ yerself to be happy and okay all the time is like expectin’ the sky to always be sunny—it’s an unrealistic idea that’s not gonna get met.”
“…Maybe so,” Twilight agreed after a moment of apprehension, her eyebrows knit in concentrated thought. “…But is it unreasonable to expect myself to be able to deal with issues I’ve been dealing with for years now in a similar way to how I’ve always done so?”
“Just about as unreasonable as expectin’ a tool to always work the way it always did without maintainin’ it,” Applejack remarked simply. “We may not be tools or machines ourselves, but the same principle applies.”
The mare then removed her stetson, looking it over sentimentally for a moment before sticking it right back on her head, releasing a satisfied breath from her nostrils as she looked out and over the field of wheat again. The way it waved and rustled with the breeze created such pretty ripples in the color; Applejack could almost have sworn that Mother Nature had to have been an artist. “Mah mom used t’ have a saying that Ah never really understood as a filly. Whenever Ah’d be really upset about somethin’, she’d smile at me and say, ‘Now sweetie, don’t worry—nothin’ lasts forever, not even our sadness.’ It felt almost like she was brushin’ off the things Ah was upset about at the time, but after she passed… Ah began to look back on what she said more and more, and Ah realized that what she said had some mighty truth to it that we can take comfort in. Sadness don’t last forever when it comes—just as happiness don’t either. Each emotion has its moment, and each will come at their own time. Sometimes we can influence which ones we feel and when, but sometimes, the things we feel are just the things we feel. Now, we can choose t’ look at that with a sort of pessimism, and be sad and mopey at how our happiness won’t always last—or we can choose to be glad for the moments of happiness that do come, and savor and cherish ‘em while they’re here.”
A chuckle escaped the orange mare as she gestured to the field of wheat the two of them had been looking at for so long now. “It’s like this field, here. In the summer, it’s bright and happy and full of life. In the winter, it’s covered with snow, and there probably isn’t very much alive with it all. But, if it were just golden and bright and pretty all the time… would we really appreciate it fer what it was? Would we see it as beautiful, or would we just take it fer granted, lettin’ it slip into our periphery as somethin’ that’s just always there? Ah dunno fer sure, but Ah’m thinkin’ we wouldn’t really appreciate it quite as much. But, since it isn’t here forever, here we are, sittin’ out on this hill, takin’ looks at it while there’s nothin’ else to do.”
Twilight’s gaze settled right on the expansive field before them, her eyes swaying with the grain stalks as they danced in place with the wind. It was a new, but… rather potent way of looking at things: to appreciate each moment, and not just the happy ones. “I never thought about it that way before,” the lavender pony eventually remarked, the beginnings of a smile tugging at the corners of her mouth. “I guess… you’re right, in hindsight. No good or bad thing I’ve ever had in my life has ever lasted forever, or… will last forever.”
As she sat there, she turned once again to face her friend, violet amethysts meeting viridian emeralds as one last question hung in her mind. “What… should I do, then? If not try incessantly to bring myself back to a state of normality… what should I be doing?”
Applejack chuckled good-naturedly, running a hand along her friend’s back again. “Well, therapy might be a start. Ah’m good, but Ah’m also not a professional. If ya’ve got stuff that’s really buggin’ ya’, Ah don’t feel the need to tell ya’ that there’s a reason why therapists have the kind of schoolin’ they do.” Snaking that arm around to Twilight’s far arm, the orange earth pony pulled her friend into another hug, humming happily as she did so. “But, aside from that… just be easy on yerself, Twi. Expectin’ perfection only leaves you feelin’ like great accomplishments are failures, and like failures are the end o’ the world. It’s okay t’ not be okay, and it’s okay to not be perfect. Doesn’t mean ya’ should stop tryin’ to be the best version o’ yourself that ya’ can possibly be, but it does mean that it’s okay to not be exactly where ya’ wanna be just yet, and that it’s okay t’ have days where ya’ ebb, and days where ya’ flow.”
This time, a true smile broke out onto Twilight’s lips, the mare tittering to herself briefly before burying her face into her arms. “Okay, okay,” she said before raising her head to meet Applejack’s own again. “I admit it… you’re pretty good.”
“Try really good,” Applejack chortled with a proud grin. “Yer not gonna feel better right away, but trust me. Sure as the sun and moon in the sky, there’ll be a day where ya’ feel much better than today. Ya’ just gotta make sure to savor it when it comes, m’kay?”
Twilight shut her eyes, and with one last nod of her head, let a satisfied breath drop from her muzzle. “Okay.”
With a pleased look, Applejack grunted as she rose to her feet, stretching out with a long hum before extending a hand down to her friend, pulling her up and off of the ground. “Good! Now, Ah think it’s about time we got back to the house; Ah can already hear Granny makin’ a fuss about me bein’ late to bein’ early to help with dinner.”
As the two set out on their way back, Twilight, though in a much better mood than before, knew that it would not last. She knew that her friend’s council, while it had elevated her to a position of happiness temporarily, would not keep her feeling that way forever. She knew that the same issues would rear their heads again sometime soon, and that this happy moment would not endure in perpetuity. However, as she stepped alongside her stetson-clad friend, she took solace in knowing that not only would those issues not last forever—but that it was those same struggles which allowed her to appreciate the moment she was in now.
A moment where everything was alright. Where things felt happy.
A moment she would savor.
Author's Note
Thank you for reading! Remember; no trouble lasts forever, no matter how big it may seem in the moment :)
