Happiness for beginners.

Dear Diary,

It’s a Thursday night in November and I’m lying in bed thinking, weak and tired... the rain has just stopped.

Everywhere is drearily dark as I reach for my phone to check the time, it’s 11:35 pm. I sigh, the same tired sigh I’ve let out all day, soft, like a breeze whispering through trees. I did not even realise my roommate was still awake. She must have noticed my sour mood, because the next minute she asks, if I’m okay.

For a minuscule moment there, I consider confessing everything. I mean she’s there, and it’s a dark room, so she probably won’t see my face. And I can even change my mind as I share and say that it’s all a joke but, no, not today

So I choose the easy way out. I tell her, ‘Yeah, I’m fine,’ hoping it sounds convincing enough to stop her from prodding any further.
I think I did well, she accepts it. Maybe, like me, she chose the easy way out too. I mean, let’s face it, nobody really wants to stay up all night listening to the sad tales of a broken friend, at least not when they have an 8am class the next day. I wonder if I would say more, maybe open up, if she pressed a little more.

Sometimes I think I want to matter, to be regarded, to be seen without asking for it. It genuinely feels good when people check in on their own volition. I know this probably sounds dramatic, but this is how you feel when you are the middle child, you grow up feeling invisible and attention starved. So when someone makes an extra effort, it hits different. It actually means something.

This year, I have been so sad, chronically disinterested but I have also masked it well. With perfectly rehearsed smiles and perfunctory replies to simple, easily questions like “How are you?”.

It’s dangerous for you to be the only one aware that you are breaking, but if we are honest, it’s also the easier way, because how do you even begin to explain the sadness that wraps itself around you the moment your head touches the pillow?

I say “easier” because I never meant to pretend, but overtime, I slipped into a certain public persona, like I’m performing a show. And I only win when I have successfully convinced everyone that I am fine and very happy.

So yes, you are right, there were no pointers. I know because I’m the protagonist and a very convincing actor, if I say so myself. But when I finally get home and sink to my bed, I know I’m finally at the place where I can be real and exist as I feel.

And yes, I said pretending is easier. Before you judge me, look around, no before that, think about it: would you willingly stay around someone who’s always sad or gloomy, for reasons you may never fully understand?

Now look around, everyone is smiling. Would you honestly approach the one person who isn’t and ask what’s wrong?

Truth is, I have also been fighting it. So, I promise you, it’s not all pretense but I’m sad, I don’t like my life, and I don’t know why because practically, I have a good life.

The events of the past couple months have been troubling for me. I have been shamed, disregarded, abused, misunderstood and directly disrespected and alone... It doesn’t help that I have not had the time to process. No one has allowed me to vent, I have not been able to write about how the experience truly felt. Also, everyone appears to have moved on and I just can’t be the one that’s still hung up on it.

What would I say... that it really cut deep? Would they even understand it? Would they try? Would they even listen?

What I’ve learned, though, is the power of context. Context exists because life is never black and white, because life has many colours. There’s the truth, there’s your side, and there’s my side. More often than not, what everybody cares to know, is the truth.
But there’s always a context to a situation, an understanding of the whole picture, the background story, the preceding chapters. Context isn’t just a subtitle, but in the foreword, and in the aftermath, the parts nobody really wants to hear.

It’s a busy world. People hardly have time to check in on themselves, talk more of checking in on someone else.
Lately I have been accepting so much. So much that now the word acceptance makes me cringe.
Someone said, “It may seem to you that people hold themselves back because they’re stupid. But there’s people who really try not to say everything that’s on their minds because if they do, they have to watch the other person get hurt, which is far worse than them holding it in.”
I understood it deeply.

I’m losing my mind. I may be depressed, this sadness is just really present, I am breaking every other night.

But somehow, I’m still responsible, to love, to give, to sacrifice, to serve.
And when you seem happy, no one really checks in, it is why this year I have been immensely grateful for the people who ask how I’m doing without any reason. Their small kindness made the dark nights more bearable.

Perpetual sadness breeds anger and hate. Sometimes, I wondered how everyone walked forward when I always felt like I was walking backward.

I sigh. Again.

I look around. My roommate is asleep now.
I pick up my phone for the second time tonight and I decide to listen to music. Reckless love by Cory Asbury is my song choice tonight and it does something.

It reminds me that I’m loved, seen and cherished. And even though I feel alone and deserted, I remember God and it feels so good to know that he is on my side. That I’m never alone.

For once tonight, I allow myself to crack.
I cry.

Love,
Victoria.