On the Topic of Being Happy

Okay, it has occurred to me that anyone reading what I've put on this blog so far is probably coming away thinking I'm depressed. Well, depressed and obsessed with dueling construction equipment (as any sane human being should be! Come on, it's as close to Transformers as we're likely to get!). And that isn't the case at all. I am actually pretty happy. Am I frustrated that the economy is in the shitter and I can't find that second part time gig somewhere? Yes. Do I get annoyed with the inconsistency and unreliability of freelance writing? Absolutely. And I vent, and I deal with it, and I move on. But I'm still happy. And that's all relatively new in terms of the grand sweep of my life (yes, it's grand. Fuck you).

In order to talk about how things are better, I kinda need to go into when things weren't good. So yes, prepare for another round of flaying myself open and bleeding out all over the Internet. But I promise that there will actually be some lights at the end of the tunnel this time.

Let's go back 4-5 years, Mr. Peabody. Many of you probably remember sharing many laughs with myself about my constant job hopping. Oh, I was leaving this place because I didn't like the company. That place sucked because of blah de blah. That job? Nope. Some bizarrely minuscule aspect of working there apparently rendered it a no-go. Ad nauseam. But that wasn't the problem. I absolutely HATED the entire line of work I was in. Despised it. I loathed every warehouse that I trudged into. But it was comfortable, so I kept doing it.

"Oh, it'll be fine. I just need to suck it up." I kept telling myself. And the whole time, I was getting dragged under. It took a long time for me to actually look back and realize just how miserable I really was. And I don't tend to really talk about it because...I don't know. Maybe part of me is embarrassed. Well, fuck that. I was as low as I've ever been in my life, and for an incredibly long period of time I didn't even realize it. And eventually I just gave up. I wasn't getting anywhere, I couldn't gain any traction, so fuck it.



This brought me to two crutches that I have when I'm low : spending and food. The former would be why I don't have a lot of tangible stuff to point at. I was just tossing money out the door on empty purchases to get that one quick little rush of happy before it faded out and I was on to the next thing. The latter is why I eventually topped out at over 245 pounds. Because what's being depressed without adding physical ailments to the list, right? My knees hurt, my back hurt, I felt like shit all the time. Not good stuff.

Hey, there it is!

And then, I woke up. I would love to be able to say that I know what the moment was when the light bulb over my head stopped malfunctioning and actually switched on, but I legitimately don't remember. I just know that it happened. And I finally realized that I hated what I was doing, and the sheer amount of damage that I was doing to myself. And I did something about it...which was a lot harder than it seemed like it should be. Turns out that years of bad routines are brutal to get away from.

But I did it. The wife of an online buddy of mine had been doing freelance writing at the time, and kept telling me that I should give it a try. After years of saying 'Bah, nobody wants to pay me to write things!', I did it. Two years of doing nothing but that were pretty lean financially, but I didn't have a lot of bills and I regained my sanity. I also stretched out creatively in ways that I'd never done before. It was a great experience. Sure, I didn't make a lot of money, but I don't regret it for a second.

And I got my fat ass of the couch and started getting back in shape. Hopped up on the scale today (which I don't do that much, but I figured it made sense since I was going to write this post) and read 204. I've got more muscle tone than I remember ever previously having in my life, and I just flat out feel a lot better. Today, I did this. And I actually did the entire thing. 4-5 years ago, I'm probably rolling out of here on a gurney. Today, I polished it off and am about to head out for a stroll.

So yeah, I'm going to have days where I'm tired or grumpy or just having a shit day. And I've got a ways to go to get to where I want to be. But I'm in a position now that's about a thousand times better than where I was. I dug a giant hole, fell into it, then just kept digging down.

Eventually I hit some sort of bottom, bounced up and clawed my way out of the pit. And I'm pretty proud of that, actually. Sure, it would have been better to just not start digging in the first place, but whatever.

So there you go. Not miserable. Actually pretty happy. Things are good.

Huh, would you look at that. As I was tossing these skeletons out of the closet, I unearthed one more. Might as well get rid of it as well since skeletons make for really crappy house decorations. Seriously, if you're decorating with skeletons, you are creepy as fuck. It's that simple. 

So here's another little tidbit that I've avoided mentioning at all because of past embarrassment : I never actually graduated high school. Nope, I've got a GED. And I didn't get that until maybe eight years ago. Again, would have been better to not be in the situation to begin with, but I'm happy about the fact that I dealt with it. 



Really, most of what might come off as depressing here is me just unloading something off of my chest so that I can move on. If I express it, I get it out. Let's call this another chapter in doing that, while also (hopefully) convincing you that I'm good, because I am. And I'll work a little harder on actually talking about this stuff in person from now one rather than bleeding out all over the page down the line.