Happiness is what you build from not to
I used to be so obsessed with being enough to be happy. I would be so caught up in how clear my skin was, how many pull ups I could do, I was caught up in numbers. Inches on my waist. GPA. Books read. Pieces done. It was madness, it was never enough, it was chocking in the dessert because I followed the lines in the sand past the water.Â
And then something snapped. Well I mean it wasn’t just something I snapped. I don’t know how long it had been building but it was fine and then it was chaos and then I was looking myself in the mirror in a psych ward. I felt like death, it was awkward and disappointing, it was too much and utterly underwhelming. It was chaos there was no other word for it. It just felt like things getting worse and worse and worse and worse. I can attest hell has no basement.Â
I’m writing this because for the first time I woke up and I went to school singing to my music and I dealt with the incidents of the day and I bounced back. For the first time in hell almost three years I got up and I was just okay with whatever happened. I was enough.Â
I walked into the wrong class, I messed up talking to the dean and got called an idiot, I answered a question out loud in front of a new teacher and was dead wrong, and I didn’t give a fuck. I mean I did but within an hour I’d rebounded. I did okay. I felt okay. I feel okay. I ate lunch and a legit lunch, I talked myself out of my negative reactions, I like damn I’m proud of me I didn’t think I could do that.Â
Today is the day I cemented it.Â
You don’t build to happiness you build from it.Â
You work on being stable and then holy shit you guys you can do so much. Everything is easier when you’re happy. Dancing doing the dishes is so much better than staring off into space counting down time. I don’t even know how I got here like there. That’s not true its just the simple stuff that works, you pause, you cope, you get enough sleep but not too much, you avoid what hurts, you set boundaries, you do what you can and you forgive yourself for being in pain.Â
I’m not in the clear yet. I have a lot behind me but now at least I know I’m heading in the right direction and that means a lot.Â












