“Some people turn sad awfully young. No special reason, it seems, but they seem almost to be born that way. They bruise easier, tire faster, cry quicker, remember longer and, as I say, get sadder younger than anyone else in the world. I know, for I'm one of them.”
― Ray Bradbury, Dandelion Wine
I woke up this morning and felt nothing. Absolutely nothing. I was devoid of sadness, happiness, hunger, thirst, I wasn't even content or worried about feeling nothing. When I was a kid and this happened, I would stay in bed and try to concentrate very hard, staring at the ceiling, until something came to me. I don't do that anymore, I just get out of bed and get on with living.
You make breakfast, shower, ask yourself "do I feel anything yet?...Nope, not yet, just keep going."
By the time I was out and about I did feel something though, it amazed me. It was like waking up and opening your eyes to everything around you. Most people go through their routines everyday, most of us never stop and look around because we've seen it, we appreciated it once upon a time, why bother doing that everyday? But I did this morning, I did stop with my coffee and soak up the feeling of the sunshine on my back, the breeze ruining my hair and the comings and goings of other people in the coffee shop and I realised I was actually alive.
That sounds ridiculous, how can anyone forget they're alive right? I don't mean it like that, I know I'm breathing, but being alive and actually living are two separate things. I mean I realised I was in fact living my life, just like all those other people around me. I wanted to pull out my notebook and write things down that I noticed, until I remembered I gave up the habit of carrying my notebook when I gave up the goal of becoming a writer. Still, the memory is a like a digital camera, if a bit faulty at times.
I'm rambling slightly, but what I am trying to get at is the fact that yes, I am alive and living today. I just needed to stop and look around. People like myself spend so much time with their heads in the past, avoiding the present and never daring to look into the future, that's no-man's land, that we let life pass us by most of the time.
It came as a shock to me to realise today, that when I felt the sunshine, tasted my coffee, listened to other people grumbling with morning grogginess, that I was happy to be there. Doing something so completely normal that we don't stop and think about it for a second, but it made me happy. For the first time in months, I felt every part of me was functioning. Not like days of staying in bed and thinking your heart is beating too slowly or not at all, or being so anxious your heart beat can be heard in your ears or threatens to explode out of your chest, this was the normal thump-thump of every day living.
Despite what a lot of people think about me, I am capable of happiness. Lots of things bring me joy like walking into a store and hearing an old song I used to play over and over and then I forgot about it, learning new random facts and passing them on, running into someone I haven't seen in a long time or simply talking about ridiculous things with friends into the early hours of the morning. All of those things make me joyful. I just forgot about them or simply wasn't paying attention.
This is as much a reminder to myself as it is to people who know me. Today I am happy, I am living and I am fully aware of everything around me. It's a great endorphin rush. I've spent months wondering what it was that I had lost, what it was that I had done to lose my grip on my own happiness. It's not from a lack of trying to be happy or trying to think "positive thoughts." A lot of people think others who are depressed or appear to be sulking are apparently not thinking enough about their lives or their problems. People couldn't be more wrong. It's the exact opposite, I spend too much time thinking and then over thinking every single little thing, until thinking begins to drive me crazy. We're not lazy thinkers, but we focus on the wrong sorts of things.
I think today I realised something important. I didn't lose my happiness or the ability to feel (which I thought many times), I buried it, along with the notions of living, too caught up in everything going wrong, in other people's disasters and too focused on pain. I also have a terrible habit of letting unkind words or other people's actions ruin my days. I remember once a friend asked me what I thought my worst trait was and I didn't hesitate, obsessiveness. When obsessiveness is one of your most dominating personality traits, conditions like depression, eating disorders and anxiety are even worse because you become so focused on them that you forget everything else, usually the good things.
I still have my problems, but I can sort them out. I still worry about the future, but that is going to always happen regardless of how much I stress and sulk. I'm still an insanely obsessive person and that's never going to change, I'm always going to fuss over my weight, but at least it gives me focus. I do get depressed very easily, but at least I know I also have times of great happiness. There's a quote by someone I can't remember the name of and I'm too lazy to google it, but to paraphrase it said that you can't know happiness until you know sorrow and I believe that wholeheartedly. If I am sad tomorrow, at least I can assure myself that I was happy today. Maybe I just have to stop every so often and remind myself that I am doing the best that I can, that I'm being and just enjoy the day for what it is, not what it could be.
You have to remember that life is sort of like running a marathon, if all you do is focus on the physical effort, on the distance left to cover, everything seems much harder and longer and you have a lesser chance of ever making the finish line.
“What should I be
but just what I am?”
― Edna St. Vincent Millay
