Suckinesses

“Whether you choose to move on from your struggles and enjoy life or waddle in your misery, life will continue.” ― Germany Kent

Most times, I do not think about whether I am happy or not.  Usually, I only think I am unhappy when unhappiness visits.  When we let go of past ways of thinking, past ways of reacting to life and its many ups and downs, we have the opportunity to let go of the wishes, hopes, and dreams of things that we thought we Should have had, and learn to enjoy what we have without any future reference of trying to have things we only imagine.  To always want what we do not have is to diminish what we do have, already. 

Yes, there are times we feel dissatisfied and restless and we feel like we are missing out on something, or, even, do not know what we want, but are sure there is something more.  Sometimes it takes a deeply wounding experience for us to begin to clarify what would make us truly happy, what we do want.    I was quite sure I would never be happy again, when my sweetheart died.  It has taken four years for me to begin to clarify what happiness in my life means, now that my sky has fallen down.

When he died, I felt that overwhelming feelings of rejection that death of a truly loved person brings.  It feels like rejection, truly.  In fact, it felt as if God rejected me by taking away the first true love of my life.  In my head, in the grief, I felt unloved and unlovable, abandoned, yes, abandoned, totally.  I could find nothing to distract from th8s feeling, for several years.  I was a shell, walking through the years, void of true happiness.  Yes, he had made me happy.  Our life made us happy.  Then, the main ingredient to my happiness was plucked away.  I did not know who I was without that happiness and comfort.  I could not distract myself from that loss for years, yes years, and simply took my life-beating and lived with it.  But, along the way, bit by bit, my whole Self began to return, even my sense of humor.  I learned to choose safe things to do and hope for, more realistic things than "I-want-my-life-back!"

Yes, there are times when life really sucks, not just disappoints us, but really sucks.  But, as always, if is how you view the suckiness, not just the suckiness, itself.  It seems, when we fixate on the suckiness, more suckiness things happen.  We can dwell on it, or we can move past it and it takes attitude, a mindset, a courage, to turn negatives into at best, less suckiness:  to learn more about yourself in positive ways.  I survived!  And, God knows, there were times I certainly did not want to. 

So many of us move into ebbs and flows of victim complex, of times of low self-esteem, of lack of energy and motivation, and those times are when we just cannot be bothered with the work it might take to learn the lesson.  I do not mean to move into fantasy land where we deny, pretend, that we do not feel defeated in some way.  I mean really feeling the feelings. 

Yes, old adage:  Enjoy the journey, celebrate that there are times you do not feel defeated, and do not give up on what real life is;  ups and downs; hurt and healing; sorrow and joy;  being comfortable in your own skin whether you skin is hurting or not;  never ever giving up; choosing acceptance that leads to happiness, or, at best, comfortable. 

Why do we sometimes feel no contentment in where we are at in life, how we are living our lives, how the journey is worth it not the end goal?  Rally, not being satisfied is 'wanting more'.  Once we learn to accept what we truly have, we will be grateful and satisfied with what we have.  That does not mean totally give up hopes and dreams, but, rather, having those hopes and dreams fit reality:  No, I cannot have my old life back!  And, no, people do not need to change to make me happy.  I need to change.

Every time I get a headache, a backache, heartache, I simply have to be grateful it is not worse than it is.  And, me dreaming up that it is the 'worst' thing, is ridiculous.  You only have to live as long as our eldest ancestors to even grasp what the worst might be.  Focusing on what we do not have, is leading to despair. When we think we 'want' something we do not have, perhaps we have to look at why.   I want Man Hands back because I felt truly loved, I felt comfortable, I knew what to expect and why, I loved.  But, since that is a fantasy, I have learned to accept what I do have.  I am loved.  I live a comfortable life.  I know I get what I earn.  I love.  And, I appreciate myself and others more because I have no fantasies attached to the future.  I know life can change in the snap of some Great Almighty's fingers.   I no longer tell myself the story that I am somehow wanting, witho9ut someone, without something.  I tell myself the story that I am enough because I have learned, there is no one else to save me, there is no one else who can make me happy or sad.  I am in control of how I feel and I will be danged if I spend the rest of my life, however long or short, in the state of wanting more. 

Not one soul can avoid times of rejection and los, times of upset and chaos, times of really truly down and dirty suckiness.  Someone wrote, and I am not sure whom, that at night is when the wolves come out to feed.  I think we tend to allow ourselves to dwell on negative stuff, late at night, when the moon is out or not.  Sometimes negativity is escapism.  We are enjoying our own suffering and we let the wolves gnaw. It is then we secede our joy and our gratitude.   We are allowing the wolves in.  We are allowing ourselves the dark nights of the soul because we choose to have our life suck.  We are all born to die many deaths.  I want the Big Die to be when I am happy, content, satisfied, and not in the midst of rabid wolves we know we allow in.  We do not know when it comes, or how it comes, but, surely, I want to go in a celebratory fashion, knowing I am enough and that life did not always suck.

Whatever it takes, we put one foot in front of the other, walk the plains, the valleys, the mountains, the sunny times and the shadow times, with love of the journey not the heartbreak of the shadows.  Don't let it suck, sister-friends, there is enough of life to sadden us, to worry us, to wound us.  Let us not dig at those scars or walk through thorns because we love the hurt.  It sucks, but in its sucking, we learn courage and bravery to continue on.  It is going to take that these last years.

©Carol Desjarlais 5.26.19