You’re running up a hill and your legs are tired and your lungs are burning and you keep forcing yourself forward but it’s tough and you’re at the limit and you put your eyes down, stare at your feet, one after another, steps getting slower but you don’t stop, and you don’t look at anything but your feet and a little bit of sidewalk and you’re thinking when will this end and then it does. You reached the top of the hill, everything levels out, your body instantly feels better. There’s less of a load, less pressure. The work is done, the hardest bit, you made it. You take in deep gasping lungfuls and your leg muscles feel like Whooo flat ground this is easy and it’s grand.

Relief is what your lungs feel, your legs, and the internal part of you that was just about to say fuck it, forget this and quit before you go there.

Relief is the ease that comes when pressure is reduced or tension is removed.

But relief is not the same as joy. I think it’s pretty easy to mix them up. If you’ve been under a lot of pressure, strung tight. When you get to relax after being tensed up, you feel pretty good. Relief.

A great feeling.

But not the same as joy.