I Must Be Merry

I’ll be honest, I’ve not been merry or happy during these holidays. I haven’t been happy for a long time. Ever since this past summer. These holidays I really had to push myself to act happy. Anytime I was out and about I smiled and pretended as best as I could. Now, being at home for my holiday break I find myself numb to everything and everyone. It’s such a strange feeling because I feel at peace being numb. Feeling nothing feels good to me. Deep down I know that this isn’t right. I know that I am allowing my depression to take me again, I don’t want that. I know that the reason I want to feel numb is because I’m too afraid of feeling sadness or happiness. This neutral place feels good and safe, but in reality is neither of those things. The New Year is coming up and I’m starting to feel myself drawn to a new year’s resolution. It is only one resolution but one that if I’m able to achieve will affect many aspects of my life. My resolution for this coming year is to be happy, truly happy.

How can someone be truly happy? I have some ideas. I have only been writing and thinking about how to make me happy most of my adult life so I really do have some ideas. Problem is I have never been brave enough to do any of them. I think this is why my depression keeps coming back over and over again. I only know how to fall into the deep end and then rescue myself and go back to being afraid of living. Fear is a big thing in my life. Fear does not run my life, meaning I’m not completely under its control, I can still venture outside and work. Although, truth be told if I could stay inside all day and make money from home I probably would. While fear doesn’t rule over my life it does hold me back and I can’t truly enjoy everything that I wish I could. As I’ve read over and over in many books, fear only lives until you walk through it. Meaning I must do the things I fear in order to overcome them. Unfortunately, I can already feel the fear about overcoming fear.

I’ve checked out most of the self-help books in my local and not so local library. I own many books about the law of attraction and guides on living a happier life. I have so much information in my mind, so many guidelines, so many tips and yet the moment my mind decides to I can drop them and replace them with nothing but darkness for months. I know the reason I do these things is because it is easier to push away the things I can’t do and replace them with things that I can do, which at this point is nothing. But again this doesn’t make me happy. One thing I am happy about is the fact that I am not crying and lying in bed. At least I am sitting up right and writing again, so yay for that. But I know I can do better than this. I want to be grateful to life for keeping me alive despite my many dark nights. I want to keep on helping little ones who are at the beginning of their lives. So I must make myself happy.

The main message I keep reading in my books about happiness is that I must do things that make me happy. What is interesting about this is that although it sounds like a no-brainer when I look back I realize I have not been doing things that make me happy. I have always done things that make others happy. I don’t really want to get into why this is, I’m sure we all have an idea why we do the things we do. So now I think I have some homework to do. I must figure out what things make me happy. There’s a chance this might end up changing my career, my appearance or anything else but it doesn’t matter, the main objective is to be happy. I know I have a lot of work to do and knowing only the weak side of myself I fear I might have little progress with a lot of setbacks. Still, at this point in my life and the strange way I am feeling I feel I have nothing to lose. I must push against the grain and see if there really is a light at the end of the tunnel. I must be merry.