The day your real laugh comes back after a rough stretch, take a second and notice it.

Coming out of a bad stretch does not happen on a date. It happens in small returns you almost miss, and one of them is the laugh that arrives before you decide to laugh. For weeks everything has had a delay on it, and then one afternoon something is just funny again. That is information about where you are.

When it happens, give it a second of attention rather than moving straight past. You are not obliged to feel better than you do, and one good afternoon is not a recovery. But it is evidence that the thing you feared was permanent is not.