On Happiness and Life

I have a really good life and I'm so bad at being happy.


This is a post from a blog I've been reading for a few years now, and also (of course) where I found the above quote.  I think things like this are really the reason I started reading this woman's blog, and also the reason I continue to read it.  She doesn't post often, but it's scarily well-written when she does.  She does what I wish I could--spin the words together in an elegant fashion and put down pieces of her life, of herself, onto the page.  I wish I was half as good.

The sentiment of it, though, is what really caught my eye.  That's me in a nutshell.  That one sentence sums up the past few years of my existence so simply and eloquently.  Because that's the thing about me...I know how good I have it, and I just can't seem to be happy about it.  It's almost infuriating sometimes, because it's entirely too too easy for me to sabotage myself, and I keep wanting to do it, even though I don't really have any reason to.

I don't even know how I got onto this whole self-destructive kick.  I remember the first time, sure.  I remember the first time after that, if it still counts as a first time then, which I think it does.  It's one of those stories that I want to pour out, because if I was a good writer, I'd be able to turn it into a heartbreaking tale of innocence lost or something equally dramatic.  But I don't write it.  As much as I've always wanted to, I never have and I don't think I never will.

First of all, I'm not a particularly good writer.  I have my moments.  I've written pieces that are honest and touching and emotional, at least to me.  I've been told they're well-written, as well, but I never know how much to believe impartial opinions on such things.  But most of the time, my writing isn't terribly good.  It's just me throwing thoughts down, putting characters against a contrasting background.  And second of all, it's personal.  I know I've written many personal things here before, but this is the sort of thing that I don't necessarily want people to know about me if they don't already.

In a strange way, the thing that I quite possibly allow to define myself is the one I don't want anybody to know the story of.  Maybe it's an instinct of self-preservation, where I understand my weaknesses and don't want others to know them, or maybe it's just another twist of my particularly crooked mind.  Regardless, that's a story that I don't know will ever be told here, or possibly anywhere.

But this whole inability to appreciate how good my life is never fails to bother me. I know how good my life is, and I'm certainly grateful for it.  And yet I somehow just can't be happy about it.  I don't know how to appreciate it.  At all.  It's like I don't know how to be happy anymore, because no matter how well things are going, I can't seem to dig myself out of this pit of mild to moderate depression.

I ruin things for myself.  I allow my anxieties and concerns to run rampant and spoil experiences for me.  And most of the time, I get past it.  I get over it.  I manage to stifle my problems well enough to continue with life and be functional. There are just those moments when I open my eyes to a wave of sadness washing over me and for a second forget to breathe.  Then it overcomes me and I'm powerless until it releases me.