What is Happiness?

I'm not sure if I know what happiness is. I remember feelings of lightness and smiles. But they come and go with the wind. I wake up one day and there is a feeling of hope, the next a feeling of regret and sorrow. Yesterday I was strong, today I am weak.
So what is true happiness?
Is it a feeling that says forever?
I don't think that is the case.
I think that happiness is a light inside yourself that is so hot and so bright, that is will never go out. Sure there will be times that something will try to blow it out. But the light stays true and keeps going after each blow.

Right now, the light inside of me is very weak. Almost a fleeting spark that can't hold a flame.
It was there once, I think. Or maybe my light never could learn how to keep lit. It just fell behind of was out blazed by the rest of the flames around it.
I tied to fake it for a while. Fake it until it is real, right? But I suppose that isn't how it is done. The things that make me happy are things that don't make my family happy. Sometimes my friends.
Design.
Photography.
Cooking.
Stories.
Travel.
To be in love.
These are things my parents didn't seem to understand. So they ignored my pleas to make me apart of them. Or maybe it was a little bit of my fault too. I was too busy trying to keep my head above water in life to pay attention to the things I really wanted.

Keep people from making fun of me at school.
Keep my Mother from acting crazy.
Keep my health from fading.
Don't let people know how hurt you really feel.

The only goal I had growing up was to get away. And away I did.

Then what?

What were those goals again?
What were my dreams?

They got lost in the fight to survive out my childhood.

Now that I am an adult with the ability to make my own choices I feel lost. Because where is my light?
I have no idea. So I search and search and search. Nothing changes. 

Walk Through a Cemetery

The Roller Coaster

I'm in Richmond, VA staying with a good friend and hitting the town. Last night we hit the town for drinks at the favorite watering holes. I felt like my happy self there for a moment. Sitting with friends talking about old stories and new ones made me feel apart of something that clicked again. Shots were poured. I was the center of attention for all the single guys. Wanting to buy me drinks as we talked candidly about our lives and what kind of things we were into. Hugs were thrown all around me as people welcomed me back to Richmond like I lived here for years. They all want me to move here.

"You're Awesome Jennifer! Why can't you live here. Richmond loves you."

I kissed the guy I was flirting with goodbye, knowing I'd never to see him again. I gathered with the group of friends I was with and we stumbled back. Laughing the arm and arm the whole way. I went to bed feeling light and accomplished.

Today I hit the peak of the coaster and now I'm falling. The substance that was holding me up last night in melting away into darkness. I think, if I stay here nothing would really change for me. Where is the reason for ME to be here? There is no purpose. They only want me there for their own reasons.

It was fun to share a moment of someone's life who is stable and moving forward. It felt good to know that I still can feel that way. Only now I need to know my own place; find my own platform to stand on. Then invite them to come share it with me.

This is how I feel.

Its is 5AM and I suddenly woke up with the compulsion to create this blog.

I am severely depressed. So much to the point that I wake up at night and just cry. I try to go to sleep and get the feeling that I'm watching a horror movie. Only it is my life swirling out of my control. I have no use of my own happiness. It is like the sunny lightbulb that was in my brain has been slowly dimming for years. As of a year ago it went out completely and the rest of my body is feeling the effects of no light, no Sun.


I have no steady job and live with a roommate whom I'm constantly tiptoeing around. Trying to force myself out of bed when he is home so he want think of me too much as a loser. When he leaves I get right back under the covers into my hiding spot. But now even the cover of my blankets can't hide the thoughts in my head of fear, regret, sadness, and embarrassment. I am very hard on myself and have been all my life. I used it as a survival tool to get me though the those awkward teenage years. Now the compulsion to make myself work harder and be better then I was the previously has consumed me. I've pushed myself so much that my body is physically exhausted from just thinking of all the things I can't do. All the memories I try to suppress come back with a vengeance. All I think about are my mistakes and not my trumphs.

I can't tell if I am drifting further from my friends or if they are drifting from me. No one cares to visit or call to see how I am doing. I realize now that I have become a buzz kill and no one cares to be associated with one of those. That is one of my greatest fears. It puts a huge weight inside me. My friends are the most important things to me and without them I feel like I am nothing. But they go on without me. Leaving me behind like the small child no one else wanted to play with on the playground. I was that kid by the way.

But I think that I tried to help people so much that I lost sight of who I am and aspirations as a person. I feel empty. Without knowing what makes you happy is the most frighting experiences I have ever been though. It makes you not want to eat or breathe or talk. I just want to think and try and remember what where those little nuggets of things that made me smile or drove me to get out of bed everyday with a bright attitude. In my life I haven't been truly happy through most of it. But I know what it feels like and I need it desperately.