I've read lots of self-help books and attended lots of workshops over the years on happiness. I've talked with therapists about it. And my entire life I've struggled to be able to make a list of things that make me happy. I haven't felt...depressed, per se...but I rarely experienced the kind of joy that I read about or saw in other people. I spent a lot of time looking for it.
When B was sick, and D had already died, I stopped even caring about happiness. I didn't have a death wish--but I didn't have a life wish, either. I was just tired. Always, so very tired. I didn't belong anywhere, and soon wouldn't belong to anyone. Even "belonging" to and with B meant doing what HE wanted--he was dying, and he deserved that, right? So I accommodated his needs and desires, his family and friends...and mine all got lost in the shuffle. Nothing mattered. *I* didn't matter. Life...I could take it or leave it. I always wished I could trade places with B...he had SO much to live for, and I had nothing. He had so many people to live for, and I had no-one. He had so much passion and desire for life, and I had...flatness, at best.
And then, about three weeks after B died, something shifted. To this day, I have no idea what. God's or Gaia's grace? D's spirit pushing me along? A gift from B, who was so very full of life until the day he wasn't? My dear Uncle J, who in some ways knew who I was before I knew who I was, and who left me way too early? I don't know...I just know that I woke up one day and I felt alive. I felt energy coursing through me. I keep thinking this must be some sort of manic state, but I'm having plenty of weepy days in the midst of it, and I'm not spending frivolously, and I'm not doing (overly) crazy things! I just know that all of a sudden I am in love with life. I want to try millions of new things, I want to spend time with people. My anxiety hasn't gone anywhere--I still worry, and I still want to try new things within my own comfort and safety parameters, and I still want to spend time one-on-one with people (it's an introvert thing, lol!). But the fact that I want these things at all is huge. I get excited over good food, a beautiful snake in my yard, the sound of rain on my roof. I'm excited to go to the mountains this weekend, and I haven't been excited to go anywhere in YEARS and always have to push myself to do so. I feel like a kid waiting for Christmas--and I had completely forgotten what that felt like! i don't want to go to bed, because I'm liking the day too much, and I can't wait to get started in the morning. And I want to tell everyone I know the things that they do and are that bring joy to my life. I want them to know what I appreciate, and why. I want to think that if I were to die tomorrow, I wouldn't have left anything undone or any words unsaid.
It seems very ironic that now, just a very few weeks after I came to life, for the first time in my life, I got news that I could have cancer. What a bitter pill that would be to swallow--just when I finally WANT to live, it could be taken away from me.
