“What possessed you…?”

It’s a question that’s come up now and then whenever I have expressed joy in something.

A question that would be towards joint nerdy interests, or my own. It has been a very disarming question. As if you have to explain why you are enjoying something that is not only worth enjoying, but something outside of them.

Which prompts the question in response, “what does possession mean to you?”

What does possession mean to the person who undermines one’s joy?

Why choose those words as if they can’t be turned back on you?

“What possessed you to hurt your family?”

“To lie and cheat on each of them without remorse?”

“To feel that no one will come and finish what one of your exes started on that life-threatening night in your bed, all because you feel invincible with every ‘conquest’ achieved?”

If we are to be possessed by anything, it’s the logic and spirit that celebrates people’s choices of positive expression. And not to interrogate them, as if finding bliss without you is a crime.