There's always a catch. Pure, unadulterated, and raw happiness is hard for me to come by. Not specifically certain times of the year, but always. I'm not sure when it changed. If the cloud of adulthood is looming over me, or if I know better than to get excited about things for fear those plans will fall through, even though it's excitement that translates to happiness. Although, I'm not even sure what exactly it is that brings me that happiness. Nothing gets me necessarily "happy" or "excited" anymore, and I feel like I'm broken. I always idle in "okay," and I suppose being strictly "okay" is better than the opposite. I'll spare the details, although this blog was made with details in mind, but I have not had a good few weeks. My stomach hurts just thinking about it. I'm experiencing effects of stress like I never have. In past years, I have dealt with stress by refusing to deal with it. Logical, right? I lost weight, lost mental capacity, lost any semblance of true and personal relationships, and most importantly, lost my ability to understand how I needed to care for myself. All for a job. Worth it? Not in the least. However, I'm finding that this time around I'm able counteract a lot of that stress by dissecting it, and my stressors, piece by piece. Details, people. I'm telling you. It is all about the details.
This morning I resorted back to ignoring my problems. I slept 10 hours, then remained in bed for another hour and a half, mindlessly scrolling through Twitter and Instagram, as one does. I finally got up, ventured to the living room, watched the end of SPLIT with my mom, then immediately found myself back in bed. Today is my day off, so I feel like I can do that, and I intend to. Let me have this. It was then that a friend sent me a Facebook message, and I knew it had to be good. He only ever sends me quality content anyways, but this blew everything out of the water. Now, I don't know if it's my lack of brain capacity talking because I can't think about much else aside from work, or if I am grabbing on, as tightly as I can, to what little happiness DOES reside in my body somewhere, but I was almost moved to tears. It was a video of Biltmore setting up and decorating their Christmas Tree. One minute and fifty three seconds of one of the biggest, if not the biggest, tourist attractions in North Carolina putting up their Christmas tree. Nevermind today is Halloween, I felt something do a flip in my chest. It feels like a smile, but in my heart, and it was then that I realized this is the catch. My happiness (this year, at least) is very much stemmed by Christmas. Nobody likes Christmas in October, but I've been rolling in it since July. I can't explain why it makes me happy, because you'd think by my third Christmas in retail, I'd be done with Christmas at the beginning of November, but when I think about Christmas or see anything that resembles Christmas, I get this feeling of pure, unadulterated, and raw happiness. Even if it's here for a mere second then gone, I still felt it, and I want to hold on to it. I'm sure by Christmas, it'll be close to gone, and that's the double edged sword of the situation. Do I enjoy the excitement now for fear of losing it by the time everyone else is ready to celebrate, or do I suppress it until the rest of my world is fully decorated, and refuse to allow myself that happiness at a time I need it the most? It really isn't that serious, but I made a blog to write this shit down, so here we are. Let's hope I can conjure something genuinely thought-provoking soon, because this whole "fake deep" thing just isn't working for me.