The Great Job Hunt of 2009 continues with very little success, but I am not discouraged. Ask me again in another week and my answer may be very different, but for now I’m trying to stay positive.
Despite how boring my life is, I’ve been a bit of an emotional wreck lately. Moving out of Boise has allowed me to get out of some emotional ruts and to actually think about some things that I had blocked out. While I think this is good, it’s also very difficult at times and I often find myself wanting to go buy a bottle of wine and a pack of cigarettes just so I can turn off my mind and block it all out again.
Years ago, as a young teenager, when my depression was in full swing, people used to tell me to “just be happy” and my response (ever the contrarian) was, “I don’t WANT to be happy.” I wasn’t lying. During those years, most of the “happy” that I knew came in plastic bottles with a child-proof lid, and the numbness, the emptiness, of it all terrified me. So instead of popping pills, I spent my teenage years bouncing between rage, inconsollable sorrow, and apathy, and when things got to be too much, I would simply get drunk or cut rather than go on prescription medications.
Now I find a very simple phrase running through my head: Choose Happy. And, more often than not, I do. It’s every bit as hard as I thought it would be. I don’t mean to imply that I am happy all the time, or that I do not experience sorrow or anger, instead it very simply means that I choose to continue to live, and live well.
If you had asked me six months ago whether I thought my life would get better I would have said “No,” unequivocally. I honestly didn’t think I would live this long, and I thought that if I did I would be so far gone by now that one wouldn’t even consider it a life. But I do believe that things will get better. I choose happy.
And your new point of view proves that life IS, indeed, better. Sure, circumstances still suck, but at least you know there is a light at the end of the tunnel.
I’m happy to hear you’ve chosen happiness!!