There are seasons in life when we expect things to finally shift—when we hope that after all the waiting, struggling, and hoping, something will finally feel different.

But what happens when it doesn’t?

Disappointment is a tricky thing. It sneaks in when we least expect it—when we’ve set our hopes on something, only to watch it slip through our fingers. We feel it in our gut, in our chest, in the way our shoulders sink just a little lower.

And sometimes, the hardest disappointments don’t come from life itself. They come from the people we love.

There are moments when life feels unbearably heavy—when grief lingers, uncertainty paralyzes, and exhaustion dulls the colors of our days. We try to fix, strive, and push forward, but nothing seems to lift the weight. And then, out of nowhere, laughter finds its way in.