The Happy Person

I don’t remember the age I was when I figured out I was funny…but I remember it felt like my super power.

I wasn’t a good student…I did love creative writing, drama, journalism, and piano….I was really good at piano. I enjoyed cheerleading but certainly wasn’t amazing at it…I was ok…I was reliable…I was little and tiny and sometimes that’s half the battle….but where I really shined was humor.

I was sent to the office for talking all the time. I frustrated my accounting teacher so much he sent me to the office with all the boxes checked….my principals wife was laughing…just the way I like it.

Speed ahead 30 years….and it’s still my super power….but lately….I don’t feel funny. I feel tired….dark…and strangely done. I find myself wanting to hide in quiet hobbies….my favorite thing to do clowning….I now don’t know if I feel the strength. The world seems scarier….darker…and I feel so very duped. I just wanted to grow up to have the freedom to jump on the bed (ok, not really) and now I don’t want to. I realize that that is called maturity….but I just feel so very very lost.

I’ve always been one to keep going….stay strong….but now I am like…why bother? I am in this hole that I cannot seem to get out of. I hear people yelling my name but I just want to sleep……

I know that many of us find strength in numbers….but what if your numbers don’t show up? What if the numbers that do live far away? What if they can’t reach you in time? Those near you don’t see you….

I’ve never realized until the last several days how empty certain phrases sound….and I al so guilty of saying them myself.

We say: Praying for you….and that’s it. We say “let me know if you need anything.” But ya know they are never going to call….we don’t call or text or send a card because we feel everyone else will….and then they don’t….and then “you” feel like you must be the worst person alive because absolutely no one is reaching for your hand…..maybe three people besides your immediate family….but that is it!

How do you work your way back after that? I’m racking my brain trying to figure it out….and for right now….I find my serenity in fuzzy pajamas, chocolate and the solitude of home….new garden projects, and my dogs who think I am the queen.

I should be mature enough to set expectations ridiculously low and I am mad at myself for not doing so…but I think we all think that the world perceives us differently than it indeed does. I think we look at ourselves way higher than we should.

For me, it’s been a lesson to realize how I l ow I’ve made others feel less then….not seen….forgotten..:and not cared about. I’ve not looked at ways to help, I have been too involved in my own life to be able to help others. It has caused me time to reflect on what I do to help make the world a better place….and I think that I have a lot of work to do.

I think a lot of us get up and work hard and then when trials come and people treat us in a way that doesn’t make us feel worthwhile we blame it on the cause of “this is why I stay away.

I am not sure where we go from here….I am stuck. I’m stuck because ordinarily I would just call and make clowning appointments because for the last seventeen years that is what I’ve always done../:but today I came home after working a five hour day and took a 30 minute nap….so I don’t think I will be clowning anytime soon. This time last year we were traveling….and that changed my perspective but I can’t do that either…..

So for today…I wait for the sun to shine….I wait to be rescued….I wait to find the humor in life again….I know it will come again.