Tag Archives: Identity

The Pursuit of Unhappiness: Part 2

Posted on by under The Crazy

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In moments like this I feel so scared. I really have a fear of dying whenever I am happy. My thoughts turn especially morbid when I am traveling to my boyfriend’s house thinking on how blessed I am to have found someone like him and to still be enjoying our relationship after almost two years. I think about death when I’m laughing with the kids in the car, or joking with co-workers or paying off bills. Any satisfaction I get from life comes with the fear that it will immediately be taken away.

I once overheard my father, a very devout Christian man, in conversation as he told someone that God cares more about righteousness than happiness (hence the topic of the last musical post) and that comment still rocks my world weeks and weeks later. Because I suspected it all along. NOT that I believe the statement is true, but I believe that in subtle ways I have been raised to believe that there is no joy and happiness to be achieved in this world. That way of thinking led me into so many situations of learned helplessness; failed relationships, poor work ethic and crippling depression just to name a few side effects. I can’t be that way anymore.

I want to enjoy this. At one point in my life not long ago I really thought that struggling with depression and barely making it as a single mother was going to be my fate for the rest of my life. Then I made the decision to stop martyring my happiness and began to lean on others for help and support. I started to view motherhood as less of a punishment and more of a gift and a reason to keep me on my toes and force me to have my shit together. I have to be mentally well enough to teach my daughters that marriage is overrated, happiness comes from within and can definitely be achieved without a significant other. Independence is a virtue, love is just a feeling but commitment is what holds any relationship, romantic or otherwise, together. It is a debilitating thing to believe that self-actualization has only come about for me because I’ve been left to the devil and God no longer bothers to interfere in my life. It’s a very twisted thing, really.

I want heaven in my afterlife, but I no longer think it’s greedy of me to want to experience just a snippet of it in my life on this earth, as well. I have paid my dues with suffering and I am fully aware that I don’t deserve a thing—but I will strive for it anyway. To be completely honest, I thought of single-motherhood as a death sentence—I didn’t want children all alone, I wanted a strong man to hold me at night, to HELP me! Fast forward years later and it turns out I didn’t need that kind of help. I just needed to realize that life is determined to beat the shit out of me anyway, so I may as well choose to put up a fight for the full 12 rounds instead of accepting a total knock out.

I even have hope that maybe I can win.

Dialing It Back: Part III

Posted on by under The Crazy

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My best friend is dealing with a lot of emotional stuff right now and her go to phrase to describe it is, “I feel all the things!” I always laugh and respond with, “Oh mama knows”– but mama really does know, dammit!

I keep this blog so I can kind of keep a handle on my emotions and try not to hold back the details of how I’m feeling no matter how bizarre they can be perceived. It’s getting more and more difficult to express without feeling well…silly! It is 2014 and the overall world motto, to me, seems to be “Fuck your feelings!” Ok, then. What is a girl like me to do with that? I am the girl who will meet you at your ugliest yet only think of you at your best, or will lock eyes with you across a room and immediately want to consume and devour. I want to feel all of my things and your things, too until I combust with emotion and have to spend days in my room crying to release the tension before I can go out and face the world again. The world is telling me to have several seats.

My only problem is that I cannot find the space between feeling everything and nothing. I say dialing it back but really its not a volume button for me, its either on or its off. I don’t know how to curb my feelings and properly guard the heart I wear so openly on my sleeve. I try not to let my perceptions become reality, but I do also function under the philosophy that reality isn’t all the harshness of murder, decay, and unrequited love. I function under the philosophy that reality is who we are when we peel back the layers, its unconditional love and its just a bunch of wandering souls doing all the crazy shit that we do to quell our desire and longing for SOMEthing that resembles real to us! But the world says to me, have a seat. Your feelings, your ideals, your sheer ridiculousness is not welcome here.

So, here I sit humiliated and disappointed that I can’t be free to believe in everything. I have to change and dumb down and pour myself into this mold already laid out for me. I need to quell my emotions and come to the realization that some things are ugly and shallow and unfair no matter how you slice it. But if I lose the ability to seek out the beauty in the ugliest of things who do I become? It’s a catch 22! My heart is soft, but not strong enough to withstand being laughed at by the cynics and by those who think of me as a stupid girl in over her head, wasting time on the worthless. I used to believe that everything was worth it.

“Fuck your feelings,” says the world. Ok then…as you wish.