The other day while I was at work my manager was talking to me and randomly she stopped the conversation, looked at me and said "Kyle, you might be the most cheerful employee we have had in a long time." Me, cheerful? That cannot possibly be. I am not cheerful. Hell, I had a teacher in high school who was constantly talking about my pessimistic demeanor. I have never been mistaken for a cheerful guy. It left me thinking because I have been been hearing that a lot lately. People telling me "You look really happy" or some variation that includes a synonym of cheerful. The key is that they are not saying I am "acting" cheerful, just that I am cheerful. This is a sharp turn from where I have spent so much of my life. I have no idea if people have really known just how unhappy I have been for most of my life. When you try your best to be funny, and to be a person who everyone else can lean on, I am not sure the world can tell that you hate yourself, which is kind of the point. Now, though, I realize that I am happy and I am cheerful. I think for the first time in my life, I am just happy with who I am and where things are going. It is a strange feeling and I one that I think I occasionally still try to resist.
That fact of the matter is, being happy takes work. I have seen this article from Cracked.com around Facebook, and it is about the work it takes to change your situation in life and find a way to be happy. Well, these last 7 months have been all about trying to change my situation. it has been about looking inside myself and figuring out all of this "stuff" that has been holding back. It was about trying to realize why I spent so much of my day putting myself down. It was about figuring out why I take every chance at happiness and find a way to talk myself out of it. It has been about finding out who I have been, who I am and who I hope to be. It has been tough, and I know it will continue to be tough. It is much easier to sit on the couch playing video games, than it is to go to the gym, or go on a walk. It is much easier to order pizza, or go to fast food, than it is to plan, prepare and cook a meal. it is easier to complain about the ills of your life than it is to really sit down and analyze why you feel a certain way. Frankly speaking, this year has been crazy exhausting. It has been all been worth it. 2012 has been, at times, the most frustrating year of my life, but it has also been the most rewarding. And now it is ending and people are telling me I look happy. Not that I am acting happy, but that I look happy. I have a general look of happiness. I am a cheerful person. I cannot really wrap my head around it.
let me be clear, this is the best news of this year. Yes, I have an amazing girlfriend, who I can credit for helping me figure this out. I finished my Teaching Credential this year and due to my student teaching, I know for sure I want to teach. I know exactly what I want to do, and it has added to this monumental year. But more than anything, it has been my own work that has made me feel better. I am roughly 45 pounds lighter than I was to start the year, which is key, but it is more than that. In all honesty, if I kept living my life this way, but never lost anymore weight, I would still feel so much better about myself. I feel as if this year I unlocked something within myself that had been stuffed down by self doubt, constant negativity and downright loathing. Now, I understand so much of why these nagging feelings persisted for so long. It is so freeing. The biggest moment of self realization was when I realized, my weight was not the only thing making my unhappy, I just hid behind it, because it was the easiest thing to point to. It was the obvious thing. Now that I have realized that, I have been working on everything else. I am freeing myself from my toxins. A soul cleanse, if you can allow me a moment to be that guy.
Happiness is a choice. It seems like such a stupid thing to say, but it is. We make a choice to do what it takes to be happy, or we make a choice that it is too much work and we lay in bed with Netflix and sleep away the sadness. It took me a long time to figure that out, because it required looking into the abyss of ugliness about myself. This journey, and the ability to share it with all of my real life and cyber friends has caused me to unchain myself from the bonds of my own unhappiness. I am not no longer a slave to my own sadness. I am no longer a slave to fast food. I am no longer a slave to really sugary drinks. I am more active than I have ever been and I am in less constant pain in my legs than I have ever been. Bad days no longer completely destroy me, because I understand myself better now. I understand that bad days are not the universe personally slapping me and keeping me down. Even though I do not have the job I want, I look forward to waking up in the morning these days. I cannot remember the last time where I went months of actually enjoying getting up and being out in the world. Martina might be able to refute this, but I do not think I complained once while we were wandering around the Galleria yesterday and that is insane. For years I hated being out in the world for that long.
2012 will go down as one of the most memorable years of my life. I completed a teaching credential which began when I decided to go back to college to get my degree back in 2004. I got to play one of my dream roles as the Pharaoh in "Joseph." I took a giant flying leap of faith in my relationship by moving in with Martina, which has turned out to be one of the best decisions of my life. I think, however, I will most fondly remember this year for this blog and what this journey has done for me. When I walk down the street I look up at the world now, not down at my feet. I smile at strangers, in the least creepy way possible, I hope. I answer my phone when people call me. When I get invited out, I always actually try to find a way to go out. I enjoy the company of more than like four people in my life. This is all because one day I just had enough of feeling broken all of the time. I got tired of waiting to be fixed and decided to fix myself. No one was going to fix me, except for me.
The last thing I want to say, is that a byproduct of this blog that I did not expect, is this sense of community I feel. I often get e-mails or Facebook messages of encouragement, or stories of triumph from friends, or even people just knowing I will listen without judgement as they emotionally purge something that is going on in their lives. I love it all. I hope, as this blog and journey continue, that you will all continue to contribute. The support is lovely. Dare I say, I love you all in some way.
No comments:
Post a Comment