I’ve been feeling rubbish about myself lately. No obvious
reason. Just frustrated with writing and blogging not going as well as I want
it to, feeling dull, flat, insignificant. And when I’m already feeling bleh about
myself, I tend to take the most pessimistic interpretation of things happening
around me. It’s one of the things I least like about myself. But this
lunchtime, I found something I’d written a few days ago, but not blogged
because I thought it was rather too aggrandising and wanky. Sod it. If blogging
it gets me out of this slough of despond, I’ll take that.
I like to think when I’m driving,
I like to daydream a little.
I like to think about people
The faces of the young and the old.
I want to watch the whole story unfold.
I love to watch people. One of my favourite things to do is
to plonk myself on a seat in a public place (often a pub, oddly enough), draw
out my notebook and scribble down what I see happening around me. It gets me
thinking… About people, about behaviour, what we talk and act the way we do.
What people wear, what they eat, what they say, their body language and how it
betrays what they really think. It’s a source of constant fascination.
When we were away in Sheringham, Alistair and I took full
advantage of my mum being on hand to provide free wraparound childcare, and
found ourselves in a beer garden. It was Bank Holiday Monday, the sun was
shining, and the place was heaving. Alistair went off to get drinks; I pounced
on a newly vacant table and set myself up in the usual fashion.
Women in striped tops
and cropped trousers
Knobbers with designer
handkerchiefs and sunglasses.
Sulky looking orange
women with blonde hair and tortoiseshell sunglasses, ignoring their spouses.
Dissatisfied older
women with wrinkly lips, highlights, and narked expressions, feeling old
compared to the bright young things surrounding them.
Lots of pointless and
yappy small dogs on leads that are too long and getting tangled round legs.
Children getting
excitable/bored, acting up, and being told to ‘ssshhh!’. Parents then carry on
talking. Children start acting up again…
Fat men in tshirts
with slogans and cheap polyester shorts.
Sturdy walkers
examining maps.
GILET IN NORTH NORFOLK
ALERT
Murmur of talk, but no
laughter.
No one is having fun.
No one. Everyone looked fed up. Maybe because their table
was overcrowded, or they were hot, their food was taking too long to arrive,
their other half was pissing them off, they were sunburnt… I don’t know. But
although there was a buzz of conversation, no one was laughing. Hardly anyone
was even smiling.
Except for us. I was hooting with laughter at something
(everything), and he was grinning away, asking me what I was twatting on about
now in my notebook.
Cogs started turning (creaking) in my head. About happiness.
About laughing. About making a choice.
I’ve had depression. Whole wasted years of depression, where
I barely smiled. Crippling depression. Life-threatening depression. But now, I
take the tablets, I had counselling, I’m on an evenish keel. But one thing that
fucks me right off is people referring to my daily dose of 20mg of Escitalopram
as my ‘happy pills’. They’re SSRIs that balance out my brain chemistry so the
darkness fades and doesn’t threaten to overwhelm me. They help my mind stay
clear. They don’t make me happy.
I make myself happy. I make the choice to laugh, easily,
loudly, and often. No matter how crap things are, I can force myself not to
become weighed down by it. I can laugh, and lift my mood. If all around is
sturm and drang, then I will laugh, and whatever it is I’m facing loses some of
its power to reduce me. It becomes a
virtuous circle. You laugh, you feel better, things seem funnier, you laugh
more, the people around you smile too. One of the nicest things anyone has said
to me lately is that the first few times they saw me with The Blondies, they
assumed I must be the au pair or childminder. Because we were laughing, always.
And that made them smile too.
Happiness is a choice. Make it. And laugh. LOTS.
Posts
4 comments:
*does happy dance with pants on head*
Let's see some KITCHEN DISCO action!
You're right - happiness *is* a choice. I read The Happiness Project at the beginning of the year and, whilst it is an extremely personal journey of someone who is very unlike you and me in many ways, she does make some very memorable points about the way we can make ourselves happy - particularly if we feel like happiness is evading us - its a choice to just smile, laugh, be uplifted by a song, choose not to slump and whinge. And, particularly when you have small children its about learning to see the wood for the trees. I love that you seem to find joy and share that with your children - it is very telling that people think mothers are incapable of joy and shared joy with their children... X
I think it's tough when your children are young, because life can very easily become quite relentless, and it's that much harder to find happiness because they're so reliant on you. I've found it much easier as they get older. Laughter gets us through most things...
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