Have a Nice Day. Really.

I am typically not a fan of horror movies. They give me nightmares. There is usually no happy ending. I prefer movies that escape the reality and offer the misnomer of happily ever after.


But occasionally I can find enjoyment out of a blood bath. One of my favorite horror movies of all time (not that there are that many) was Hellraiser. I’m not even sure why it was that I loved it so much, but I did. In fact, I loved each of them in the series.


It has been a long time since I last watched any of them. The details are somewhat hazy. The plot has blurred enough that I couldn’t tell you the moral or point to the story, unless perhaps it was …be careful what you wish for. There were various characters in the movie, each of them suffering their own eternal damnation. The main character’s name was Pinhead. There were others, each more macabre than the last.


The special effects today are probably not nearly as impressive as they were back then. I can only imagine what a movie like that would look like now. I doubt I would even have the guts to watch it. But it was pretty amazing for its time. There is a certain scene in the first movie, when the puzzle is solved, in which the person who solved it suddenly has all these hooks and chains piercing their skin. They pull at him from every direction until he is ripped into a hundred pieces.


That’s what my life feels like sometimes. Maybe that’s why I have such an affinity for that particular movie. Happiness is a puzzle I can’t seem to figure out. Hell, life itself is a big mystery. Whenever I think I have things figured out and am on the road to happiness, I’m ripped apart yet again and all my foolish notions are left in a bloody pool where my body used to be. I know that’s a bit melodramatic. Maybe even more than a bit, but…it’s my writing so I can be melodramatic if the mood hits me.


I spent my childhood years trying to get my father to see me, my birth mother to love me, and my self loathing to go away. None of those things happened, unfortunately. I spent my young adulthood married to a monster. No one saw him as a monster but me. He played the part of normal very well to the rest of the world. When that marriage ended and he took up residence with the babysitter, my life became a trial both figuratively and literally at times, in which I had no representation. I was destined to lose. And I did.


I spent years trying to regain some semblance of normalcy. Though whether that is even possible when you’ve never known it in the first place is uncertain. I tried to get my son to understand my love for him. I tried to undo the damage his father and step mother did to his delicate psyche, and to the fragile bonds of mother and son. I used to think I was successful, but now sometimes I’m not so sure. Now that he is a young adult and has made something of himself, suddenly his step mother has went full steam ahead in her quest to annihilate whatever confidence I had in my relationship with him. Not only that, but she has chosen to forget a lifetime of telling him he was worthless, of hating him, of hitting him (though that ended when he became old enough to hit back). She seems to have conveniently forgotten that she threatened his father with divorce of he let my son move back in with them in the short months when I was penniless and about to be homeless, and before my son’s entrance into basic training was upon him. No, now she is so proud of “her” boy. She acts as though she has nurtured him into the young man he is today. In fact she has stated that very thing. That was of course after she wrote a scathing letter to me (nothing new there) about how she was his mother and I was not.


But that’s just one of many things. Sometimes I really think I am on the verge of getting things together. I have the misguided notion that I understand life, and my position in it. But then I stumble across things that let me know I have no fucking clue whatsoever about life, and what people think of me. People I thought truly cared about me turn out to resent me. Tender feelings turn into bitterness. Triumph into tragedy. And so it continues - each incidence a separate hook that sinks into my flesh ready to rip me apart again. Yet somehow I never get the blessed relief of eternal sleep. It never just stops. I am always somehow patched back together, only so that I can be ripped apart again.


I wish I knew why this was so. The thing is, I know that much of it is my own fault. I don’t know what it is I do, or the warped thinking that causes much of my duress, but I am aware that I have a big part in it. I pray to God every day to just make me normal. I don’t even know what that is, but whatever it is, I want it. I have drifted down into a pit of despair, and I believe I am dragging everyone in my life into it with me. I don’t want to be negative. I used to be the most positive person I knew. I used to wake up every day with a smile on my face and the belief that something wonderful was going to happen. The world was filled with endless possibilities. Now, I find it more and more difficult to even come up with a modicum of enthusiasm, let alone the starry-eyed kind. What happened to that unquenchable zest for life?


I want it back.


I once told someone that the difference between my agony and my eternal happiness was having him love me back. What would be the difference in my life, really? I mean, other than my perception of it. First of all - that’s a whole lot of pressure to put on one mere mortal. How can my entire world possibly hinge on the feelings of someone else? It’s absolutely ridiculous! Not to mention, just because HE doesn’t love me, it does not mean that I am unlovable! I need to write that one down, or have it tattooed to my forehead so every time I look in the mirror I see it. I certainly have a difficult time remembering it!


I am entirely responsible for my own state of happiness. I’m not saying that bad things can’t or won’t happen. Life is not always fair. In fact, it seldom is. Loving someone and not being loved in return is a wretched feeling. The helplessness of knowing that no matter what you do it’s not going to be returned is frustrating at best. Losing your job, your spouse, your home, or any of a myriad of other things is never pleasant. Living with illness, whether mental or physical (or sometimes both) is not easy. Dealing with life’s aches and pains sucks. Being the victim of injustice can make a person angry and sometimes bitter. But it doesn’t have to.


At any given moment in the course of a day, there are a myriad of reasons not to be happy. Maybe someone cut you off in traffic. It could be that your boss takes advantage of you and doesn’t appreciate your contribution to the company. Maybe you’ve had a fight with a spouse. Perhaps your body aches, or you’re tired, stressed…whatever. Maybe things are not turning out exactly as you had hoped. There are things you can do in each of those situations to turn a frown upside down, to coin a silly phrase.


Instead of feeling taken advantage of at your job, consider that you are doing the best possible job and whether it is noted or not, YOU know it. Take satisfaction in that. If your legs hurt or back aches when you stand for too long or walk any distance, consider the fact that you HAVE your legs, that you CAN walk, and that you could be a LOT worse off than you are right now. It might not make your feet feel any better, but it might just make a difference.


So you are in a relationship that involves unrequited love. You could rail against the powers that be for not making that person return the affection. Or, as was once suggested to me, you could just simply not love that person anymore. You could bang your head against the wall, make the other person miserable, turn into a bitter hermit or any number of other options that, when implemented, STILL will not make the other person love you back.


Or, you could choose another option. You could be glad that you have the capacity to feel love. You could be grateful for being given a person in your life that is so good to you, (hopefully) that they deserve your love. Just because you love someone does not give you the inalienable right to be loved back. It just doesn’t work that way. And, just because that person doesn’t love you, it does NOT mean that you are unlovable. It really doesn’t. Really. Let that one sink in. Realizing this is a huge step towards recovery. Believe me, I know. I’m still working on this one myself.


Why not just love them, and be happy in it? Let them have the gift that love is supposed to be, rather than the burden of pressure and guilt. Appreciate the friendship that might be a result of those tender feelings. Let it be enough. That doesn’t mean that it won’t still sometimes hurt. It won’t keep your heart from aching. But it might just ease it a little. And, in the end you can be happy from it. I personally would much rather love and not be loved in return, than to not know this wonderful, amazing, thrilling emotion. Not to mention, there really isn’t anything wrong with … requited like. I’d rather have that than nothing, any day.


Life has its ups and downs. Everyone has times of stress, sadness, anger, whatever. Not everyone has to make a life of wallowing in it. Really, what fun is that? I’ve done my fair share of wallowing. In fact I think at the beginning of this rambling, I was doing a little (or maybe a lot) of it. But you see how that works? I talked myself INTO a good day. I’m happy right now. I’m satisfied with my life. Not that I want it to stay like this forever. Good Lord, no! But I know that I am on the right path towards a happy future, whatever that may be. Why wait for that day before you feel some joy? Why allow yourself to give up the right here and right now while waiting for happiness to come to you. Go find it. Look inside yourself for the smallest thing to smile about, and then do it. Try it. The physical act of smiling actually feels good. And, if smiling is not really what you want to do at this moment, do it anyway. I’ll steal another well used phrase and say this…fake it ‘til you make it. Pretend on the outside until you feel it on the inside. It really does work.


Trust me.

My Beat Up Broken Heart

Sometimes you just have to take a chance and do things that are outside your normal standards of behavior; you have to go beyond your comfort level and just...go for it.

That doesn't mean, however, that you will get the results you think you are after. In fact, you might just get a cold dose of reality. But...every once in a while, you get something even more than you could possibly have imagined. And, rarer still, you get a gift you never dreamed of. That happened to me, not an hour ago in fact, although it was longer in the making than that by far.

For a long time now I have been trying to recover from the innumerable things that have transpired in my heretofore abysmal life. Well that's not completely true. Within my lifetime I cannot say nothing good ever happened. It just wasn't all that often. In any case, it seems that lately, at least for the past year or so, I've really come a long way towards being a woman whole again. Or perhaps I am becoming a woman whole for the very first time. In either case, I've grown; I've changed; I've evolved. There was a time when I would never have asked for something I wanted. In the first place I would never dream I deserved anything I wanted. In the second place, I would presume, however rightly or wrongly, that I wouldn't get it. That in and of itself was often a deterrent in even thinking of my own needs in the first place.

There are many reasons why I am no longer the person I once was. And there are many facets of who I used to be that I am glad to be rid of. There is the victim. I carried her around with me for a very long time. I tried to nurture her myself, usually to no avail. I sometimes wallowed with her in a pool of hot tears that seemed never ending. There were even times I kicked her and reassured her she was right where she was supposed to be...down, out, and defeated. Thankfully those times were few and far between, because mostly I have been a survivor most of all. I still wake up to this day with the renewed faith that things can and will get better. It has become my mantra even when I might ought to have given it up long, long ago. I am glad, however, that I did not lose that faith, because despite however long it took, I have found it to be true.

The death of my mother was the catalyst for change that had been a long time coming. The loss of the man I loved most in this world sparked the beginning, though I failed to see it at the time. In life we are rarely given second chances, let alone third, fourth, fifth, and so on. But somehow I got a second chance at becoming the person I always hid inside. I was given another shot at being somebody worth knowing. I was allowed a redo, if you will. Now I am stronger than I ever was before. I actually like myself. That's a new one on me. I am confident... not always perhaps, but most of the time at least. The girl I've hidden away for so long is finally getting her chance to shine. While the layers of protection that have always surrounded her are a bit cumbersome to remove, they are slowly being peeled away. In fact, for the first time in my entire life, I can see the end in sight. It will be this year that I emerge from my chrysalis and become the butterfly I never knew I was.

But.. I digress (which by the way is not anything unusual no matter the mindset of the writer herself). As I began to reveal in the beginning of this montage of sometimes ephemeral thoughts, there are times when you do things that are very much outside of your own comfort zone. I asked for something I really, truly wanted. I kept asking, in fact, for quite a while. I might even go so far as to say I was on the verge of begging for that elusive thing that I desired more than anything else at that moment. Perhaps, even, I went well beyond the verge and quite fully entrenched myself in full begging mode. But that is neither here nor there at the moment.

The point is, I went for it, fully and without remorse. In the process, I now realize I might have made someone else somewhat uncomfortable. In fact I'm pretty sure that I did. I tried to convince this person that the thing I wished for was not something to be denied. It was not because I felt I was the be all and end all, that whatever I wished for I should simply be given. It was more that I believed with all of my heart that what I said was true. That, by the way, still stands. I -do- believe what I said. I still stand by my convictions. I have no doubt whatsoever that, given that ever elusive thing, life would not have altered in any way that could be construed as negative. In fact, I'm still quite sure that it would only be a positive thing. But, that doesn't really matter either.

The fact is, I didn't get what I wanted. I was turned down...numerous times, much to my chagrin. But surprisingly enough, I do not feel the least bit petulant. I am not even all that disappointed. It's not because I really did not wish what I asked for. I did, and still do. It is more that I received something so much...more...that I cannot possibly be upset, disappointed, or angry in the least that I did not get what I wanted. I will say that I was given a boon of sorts. I was not left completely empty handed. And that small token (however it was not so small to me), will be revered, and enjoyed for a long time to come.

I find it difficult to ask for things I want for the reasons I have stated previously in this very post. But I also have a hard time because the very nature of the request leaves butterflies in my stomach and a nervousness throughout my entire being. I do not make it a habit of asking such things of anyone, let alone someone as important as the prospective giver, if you will. But, ask I did, and turned down I was. The thing is, I'm sort of glad, in an odd, twilight zone-ish kind of way. I learned something about myself, and about that person as well. I still very much want what I begged for. I still believe it would only be a positive thing. But I would not trade it for what I got instead for anything in the world.

I got respect. I got an affirmation of being cared for on a very deep and personal level. I got the knowledge that my very much beat up and broken heart is in the right hands...a pair of very strong hands that won't let it drop and break further. I got to see the exquisite beauty of self control(not my own, mind you). I had the extreme pleasure of experiencing what it felt like to be valued...treasured even. In truth the things I received in place of what I asked for are all things I've never known before. How can I be disappointed in that? Well, I'm not, so it's a pointless question. In retrospect I am very glad that I also got the knowledge that I am a very grown up girl. That might sound silly given my age, but given my circumstance, it's not so far fetched for that to be a questionable thing. The old me would have done any number of things that never even entered my mind as the new me. I might have been devastated not to receive what I was certain was the best possible thing I could ever get. (I still believe it's up there with what I did get, to be sure!) I might have been petulant, moody, disappointed, angry, and any number of other negative things. But.. I wasn't. In fact I'm deliriously happy at the moment.

Above everything else, I have a gift of friendship that is truly unequaled. It's one that I have never had any doubts would last for a lifetime. I swear I must be the luckiest girl on earth right now. I can't even stop smiling! And my battered heart is full of so much love that it's overflowing. I don't even mind the spillage, because there is more than enough to keep it quite full.

I still want what I asked for (as you can well read for yourselves by now), and maybe someday I'll get it. That will be a good day too, because it will mean that my promise is good enough to stand on its own without any tangible proof. But until that time comes, if it does, I'll remember this day always for the most amazing gifts I have been given.