For the time being, I am here. Death scares me enough to make life seem worth enduring. But you can’t live like that, day to day. You can’t live purely to postpose the negative. The mind needs something positive to drive it.
So…happiness. Peace. Being truly present in the moment, without feeling the need for a way out. Feeling comfortable in your own skin. Feeling truly glad that you, and the world around you, exist.
It’s been a long time. I haven’t felt able to be myself around people or really enjoy their company since I was 10 (17 years). I haven’t felt good about the world, or had a peaceful nights sleep, since I was 19 (8 years). I haven’t been able to look myself in the eye in a mirror without disgust since I was 20 (7 years.) I haven’t felt any real hope of things changing since I was 25 (2 years.)
At this point, I don’t know what happiness is. I can’t imagine myself being content with anything, regardless of what happens in the future.
I can still enjoy things, on occassion. But it’s kind of hollow. I like music. It gives me brief moments of escape, outside of myself. Likewise video games, tv, reading. All of these are distractions – ways of not being myself for a few moments. None of them are real happiness – none of them involve being present in the moment and ok with what’s actually going on with me.
But like I said, I can’t imagine a reality that I could be content with. So I don’t feel like I have anything to work towards.
I still believe that people can really experience happiness in this life. But I don’t believe in it for me. It’s like a sense that I used to have, but lost. There’s too many questions whirling around my mind, too much anxiety, too much fear, to ever just enjoy being alive again. I can’t turn it off. I’ve opened a door in my mind, and I can’t close it. This stuff is always there, churning away in the background.