[In vento cogitatio, spirat in vento]
I've been thinking about happiness a lot lately, in the moments where my mind wanders in class, in the dark of my bedroom before my eyes adjust, on the 30-minute walk home between the pines by the law college. I think it must be because right now, I'm happy. I'm really happy.
It's a little strange that this still feels new to me. It's been a long time since I was well and properly unhappy. And I guess I should clarify what I mean by "happy" and "unhappy," because they're overused words-- by "happiness" I mean the prevailing sense that I am happy to be exactly where I am.
It's not something I feel all the time, of course. Emotions are funny things, and it's possible to be a mess of anxiety in the morning but walk home singing at night, to go into class wanting nothing more than to be a thousand miles away and to leave wishing it had gone another hour. Moods change with the day and with the hour, and every moment has its own little crises. You can't measure your happiness on a scale that small, not usually.
But I remember a time when I would wake up in the morning not sure the day was worth getting out of bed for. (There are still songs on my iPod that I associate with a dark room, with 5:30 am, with the first thought of the day being "Oh, no.") I remember distinctly, with the same uncomfortable ache, sitting at a stoplight, my hands on a battered steering wheel, and looking at the months ahead with a dull despair that didn't form in my head so much as settle in my stomach and my limbs, bringing with it the sudden detached knowledge that I didn't want to be sitting on this side of the year anymore. I remember days when I would pull my car into the driveway, cut the engine, and stare out the windshield for ten minutes at a time, too warm but unable to force myself to open the door and let life move around me again.
I am fortunate; I have never been suicidally unhappy, or in poor physical health, or even severely depressed. But I have been persistently, pervasively unhappy, the kind of unhappiness that does not really fade with memory; it's not like the little ache that dims with time. It's still there, still just below the surface of my thoughts, something that I can remember acutely even now, when I am truly, deeply happy.
I think it's good to remember it now, when I'm walking home and the trees are outlined black against a sky turning a new and perfect color with every minute. When I'm sitting in various study lounges and restaurants with beautiful people, laughing about something that isn't even funny. When someone says, "This song makes me think of you now." And even when things are shitty-- when there's too much to do and not enough time to do it, when the writing is ugly, when the subject is frustrating, when the people around me hurt and I can do nothing about it, when I fail the ones I love-- even then, even in the moments I wish would pass faster, I am not unhappy like I once was. The shitty things are bearable, because under them is a soul-deep confidence that things are going okay.
I don't know what's caused this. I can assume the passage of time had something to do with it, and the beautiful people around me. I also give credit to the Oklahoma sky, however, and red brick against dizzying blue, and plans that will take me far away and then put me right back where I belong, and a world that seems a good one no matter how much I widen my perspective.
I'm in a good place right now. I am so grateful, so glad to get to enjoy it - it's exponential, this happiness, made stronger by my realization that I feel it. I will store this up, I think. I want to remember this in the same way I remember my unhappiness now. I want this to stay with me, and as the memory of unhappiness makes this happiness brighter, I want this happiness to stay with me for when unhappiness returns.
I listened to this walking home tonight.
It's a little strange that this still feels new to me. It's been a long time since I was well and properly unhappy. And I guess I should clarify what I mean by "happy" and "unhappy," because they're overused words-- by "happiness" I mean the prevailing sense that I am happy to be exactly where I am.
It's not something I feel all the time, of course. Emotions are funny things, and it's possible to be a mess of anxiety in the morning but walk home singing at night, to go into class wanting nothing more than to be a thousand miles away and to leave wishing it had gone another hour. Moods change with the day and with the hour, and every moment has its own little crises. You can't measure your happiness on a scale that small, not usually.
But I remember a time when I would wake up in the morning not sure the day was worth getting out of bed for. (There are still songs on my iPod that I associate with a dark room, with 5:30 am, with the first thought of the day being "Oh, no.") I remember distinctly, with the same uncomfortable ache, sitting at a stoplight, my hands on a battered steering wheel, and looking at the months ahead with a dull despair that didn't form in my head so much as settle in my stomach and my limbs, bringing with it the sudden detached knowledge that I didn't want to be sitting on this side of the year anymore. I remember days when I would pull my car into the driveway, cut the engine, and stare out the windshield for ten minutes at a time, too warm but unable to force myself to open the door and let life move around me again.
I am fortunate; I have never been suicidally unhappy, or in poor physical health, or even severely depressed. But I have been persistently, pervasively unhappy, the kind of unhappiness that does not really fade with memory; it's not like the little ache that dims with time. It's still there, still just below the surface of my thoughts, something that I can remember acutely even now, when I am truly, deeply happy.
I think it's good to remember it now, when I'm walking home and the trees are outlined black against a sky turning a new and perfect color with every minute. When I'm sitting in various study lounges and restaurants with beautiful people, laughing about something that isn't even funny. When someone says, "This song makes me think of you now." And even when things are shitty-- when there's too much to do and not enough time to do it, when the writing is ugly, when the subject is frustrating, when the people around me hurt and I can do nothing about it, when I fail the ones I love-- even then, even in the moments I wish would pass faster, I am not unhappy like I once was. The shitty things are bearable, because under them is a soul-deep confidence that things are going okay.
I don't know what's caused this. I can assume the passage of time had something to do with it, and the beautiful people around me. I also give credit to the Oklahoma sky, however, and red brick against dizzying blue, and plans that will take me far away and then put me right back where I belong, and a world that seems a good one no matter how much I widen my perspective.
I'm in a good place right now. I am so grateful, so glad to get to enjoy it - it's exponential, this happiness, made stronger by my realization that I feel it. I will store this up, I think. I want to remember this in the same way I remember my unhappiness now. I want this to stay with me, and as the memory of unhappiness makes this happiness brighter, I want this happiness to stay with me for when unhappiness returns.
Click to viewI listened to this walking home tonight.