Finding Happiness
-I do not know why I always feel the need to cling to people, but for some reason I do. Maybe I am scared to be alone or just find that it is a lot easier to be happy when one has company, but sadly I am guilty of train hopping in terms of people. I think I was cursed with an abundant amount of love and I feel the need to constantly share it. Why I am addressing this, is because I have made a huge mistake by picking the wrong person to share it with. This is where I see our society going wrong. If I am honest, I believe this is easily the root of most depression. We forget how to love ourselves and get caught up in trying to make other people love us, but we are not objects. We are people. We are souls. We are living, breathing homes. Sometimes we can be other people’s homes, but we will always have to be our own.
The story I am about to tell I do not for a second regret. I am happy it happened because it taught me that while I can put others first a lot of the time in my life, I am still the most important. I make decisions for myself. I do not have to feel peer pressured to do anything else for anyone else. And last but not least, I m
old my own life — not other people. I do not have to be what other people want me to be.
Sparkman High School. Tenth grade history. I was 15 years old. Young, dumb and my consistency was that of play-doh. He was a junior but had transferred so he had to take the class over again to regain the credit. I had always shot for the person who was exactly like me. I did not think he was. Something about him intrigued me. So when class was over, I told him I liked his shirt. He did not even like me. He would tell me he only started talking to me because his neighbor texted me off of his phone. Keep in mind I am 15 and super awkward, so like any terrible relationship, it started off via text message. Wow, how endearing. One day we decided we would go get Starbucks after school. Another sign this relationship was about to suck. Why the hell would I choose Starbucks over Dunkin’ Donuts? This was our first date. On our way home, we drove about 15 minutes past my house in Tennessee because I suck at directions.
I soon found out that he was adopted and his mom had passed away about six years prior. It is okay to have personal baggage. He did not like to talk about her. We would stop on the side of the road and pick flowers together. We watched the sunset as often as we could. We would go to plays, concerts and football games. My days were full. My priorities were slowly losing sight of what was important. I was absorbing as much of him as I possibly could. For some reason, I acted as if my days were numbered and I had to eat, sleep and breathe him. He was Seventh Day Adventist. I stopped going to church with my mom and started going on Saturday mornings with his family. He told me I had to be Adventist or else we probably would not work.
The only thing I have ever, in my life, ordered from Subway is a ham sandwich with American cheese. No toppings. Nothing extra. You could not switch that baby up if you tried. I went with him one afternoon and I could feel his eyes on me as I said “ham”. That sounds silly, but he took it seriously. He told me I had to stop. He recited the verse that says:
“And the pig, because it parts the hoof and is cloven-footed but does not chew the cud, is unclean to you. You shall not eat any of their flesh, and you shall not touch their carcasses; they are unclean to you.” Leviticus 11:7-8
So I stopped. Or if I ever ate it, I ate it in private.
I cut off a lot of ties with my friends. They were “bad influences” and had alternative motives. This was dumb. My circle was now made up of three people: him, Caitie and Mady. Caitie and Mady both had boyfriends who they also spent about 95 percent of their time with, so hanging out was almost impossible. It was him, him and more him. My parents quickly hated him. They say they did not “hate” him, but that is a lie. I would have too if my teenage daughter spent every freaking second with some control freak.
I do not know where I am going with this. We were just asked to write a story about our junior/senior year and all I could think of is how wretched that year was and how my life is in a totally different direction right now. That is the wonderful thing about self-empowerment. If you are unhappy, change your lifestyle. I shaved my head. I never told anyone, except for my mom. I did it for me. It marked a new chapter.
I started hanging out with all of my friends again. My mom got me a Subway gift card. I ate a lot of Outback cheesecake and refocused on all that was important to me. Number one is maintaining happiness.