I knew someone once who was seriously bipolar, among other problems she had, who would be telling me in all earnestness right now that I might want to consider lithium or some equally scary drug.
I’m feeling much better now than I was a few days ago. It almost feels…happy. But is this what happy people feel like, or is it just relief that the tide of feeling utterly alone and worthless has receded?
Despite having just spent $1,142.10 to get my car fixed yesterday, I was in a pretty good mood as I drove home, in rush hour traffic, along a route I hadn’t been down in probably a good five years. The flowers were blooming, my car was fixed, there was good music on the radio, albeit on a number of stations around the dial, the sun was out and it was warm enough to open the window a little.
It didn’t matter that the guy in the SUV cut me off in traffic, or that someone wanted to make an illegal U-turn and that was backing everything up, or that my country seems to determined to make me a second class citizen, or that I could stand to lose a few around the middle. I felt light, and sweet, and like smiling for no reason at all. Everything was OK, and would be OK.
And I started to wonder, is this how self-professed “happy” people feel all the time? And what can I do to make this last?
It’s a wonderful thing when the world is a welcoming, shiny place, when a set-back is something that I can look at and go “well, that didn’t turn out quite like I thought” and move on rather than have it settle on me with the equivalent weight of a cinder block.
I’m going to try to remember that feeling, remember how large and alive I felt, and to hold on to it for the next time I feel myself start to slide into the pit.
What is happy?
I’ve never really liked my place, I’ve been very lucky if you look at lots of people in the world, but I’ve never been HAPPY, feel like I have enough, or feel comfortable or like everything is ok. But now I know I’ll never be happy again.
Sunday is Mother’s day – I went out and purchased 3 roses and a card for my mother. I put it in a nice vase and wrote something in the card and I’ll never be able to give it to her…..
I had to put it on the small table in the living room which now serves as my remembrance of Mom. A table of things I have of Mom’s, a fan, a favorite pen, a furby…… Mom has been dead for 4 months and 12 days.
She was old and not in the best of health, her death was not a total suprise, and yet she had been in decent health for a while and good spirits. Nothing had led us to believe she’d be here on Friday and gone on Monday.
Its not the tradegy of a young mother, someone with small children or someone with lots of years ahead of them but it doesn’t really matter to me because she’s gone, she’s not here and I miss her so very much.
The world continues on, work sucks just as much, demands you must respond to, its like a big truck bearing down on you – its going to keep coming, nothing will stop it and if you stop long enough to mourn it will run you over.
Happy? Simply existence on the hamster wheel knowing that the prize at the end is THE END. How do you accept something you don’t want to but which is final, done.
It’s an interesting question. If you believe popular culture and advertising, it’s stuff. IMO, popular culture also defines happiness as something beyond contentment, and I really think contentment is the best we can strive for. After all, constant ecstasy is just as boring as continual misery.
It’s a lot harder to miss someone than anyone can ever express. It’s been nearly 15 years and I still miss my grandmother every single day. When my Mom dies it will be a void I can never fill.
You have to stop and mourn; you really can’t go on without it.
I have to believe there is more to my life than breathing in and out and shuffling toward my grave. If there isn’t, then there’s no point in continuing to do it.
Contentment is about all I’ve been striving for as well.
After a few years of being in this sort of cycle of happy moods, sad moods, I began to realize that I was larger than either of them. Neither defined me – each left out aspects of the other. ‘Course I liked the happy moods best! In any case, I began to make a point of remembering, when the bad days hit, “I am bigger than this. It may happen to me, but I am not this.”