Recently some dude I don’t really know was talking in a chatroom about how it wasn’t fair that he doesn’t get to be happy. He didn’t get to (insert hobbies/relationship structures) and that means he is doomed to be unhappy. Instead he has traveled to so many countries I can’t name them all and he’s done (long list of interesting things) but none of that counts.

Man. I feel you. I have attained most of the goals I set for myself. At this point… I don’t seek happiness. Happiness is elusive. Happiness is a myth. Happiness is an illusion. I seek connection. (Fuck you pandemic.) I seek the ability to control my brain enough that I don’t wreck relationships with being an asshole. Happiness is a bar too high to even grasp with my fingertips, let alone pull myself up and over.

Last night I dreamed about seeing an acupuncturist. I was desperate to deal with some of the pain in my body and I’m well aware that acupuncture is helpful. I went in to a clinic. It was hard to find to start with and when I got in and got in front of the clinician she told me I could have exactly one needle because she wanted to go on her lunch break and she didn’t have time to fuss with a lot of needles/help. I picked a thing in my neck/shoulder because it is causing intense headaches and limiting my movement for painting. She left it in for 10 minutes (which isn’t a long time in that sort of treatment) and then told me to hurry out. At the payment desk with the receptionist we had trouble figuring out what currency I should pay in. They kept switching back and forth between various currencies I have used and yelling at me for not having a full wallet of all of them. Why didn’t I have baht handy. Where are my pesos? What kind of stupid bitch doesn’t have her yen with her? Where the fuck were my ringgits? I left crying. Even my dreams are painful.

I’ve been looking at photographs of an autumn afternoon in Scotland. This is going to be tricky as fuck. I need to layer blue and yellow and orange and gold. If I try to do that while the colors are wet I’ll end up with green. This is going to take days of adding layer upon layer upon layer until I figure out the correct proportions. It’s not like the clouds in the dining room where I could just slap on blues and whites and greys until I liked it. And the ladder I am going to need to use to paint a lot of the high stuff in the hall is already scaring the shit out of me and I haven’t even gotten it out of the shed yet. Oh boy. This’ll be risking life and limb.

Why do I need to do this? Why is this important? Is it going to make me happy?

Does anything make me happy?

I learned how to paint from doing sets. From creating backdrops that taught you about the characters without them ever having to say a word. I miss therapy. I miss being able to explore who I am and figure out why I am feeling a way and what meaning it has in my story. Now I don’t talk about myself that much. But I can paint.

I am starting a new stage in my life where I am going to be presenting myself to a whole new bunch of people. Sobonfu told me I had to make my own community. I am trying to create the backdrop against which this is going to happen. The people who are drawn to me and want to be part of the story going forward will be influenced unconsciously by the setting I create. Life is like that. People are like that. We influence each other. We change each other. We connect with each other and become something different now that we are more than our separate pieces we are a new whole together.

It is a kind of magic.

Will it bring happiness? Fleeting moments, of course. Will it bring pain? Talk to my neck that cannot stop grinding as I move it. I need to see a chiropractor. Ugh. We only get to live one life. We only get one run at this gauntlet of opportunities. If I do not share what is in my soul because it is too hard, because there is not enough moment by moment reward then I have lost The Game. My children talk a lot about how they want to keep this house forever and go to and fro with this house as the place they are centered. They are children and all children have fuzzy grasps of the future. But some people do that. Some people have a home base and it is important forever. They could be people like that.

I asked my oldest if she wanted to help me paint the hallway. She said she didn’t want to. She wants to see what I create because she likes the way I paint better than how she paints. Sometimes I wonder if she limits her artistic mediums away from the ones I use because she is afraid of comparing herself to me. I’m not actually that great, my love. You will be better than me across the board by the time you are an adult and even your youthful scratchings seem pretty rad to me. She is sticking to graphite and digital arts for now. That’s fine. Your journey is your own.

She is horrified that I don’t mind her reading smut. Oh my darling. If only you understood how very very very softcore your smut is you would understand why I just grin. I am glad you don’t understand. I am glad you haven’t already been reading hardcore for years. I’m glad you understand that your sexual blossoming is still entirely future tense and you still thrill at the idea that someday you will get a real kiss.

That right there is the satisfaction of a lifetime goal. What is happiness next to the surge of power and righteousness I feel when I think I have kept them safe. That’s not a given in this life. And there is no true shame when other parents don’t attain the same goal. Life is so very hard and unfair and terrible. But I broke the cycle in my family for my children. If I had failed it wouldn’t be fully my fault because it would be the fault of the perpetrator. I have sat like a fire breathing dragon over the cache of gold that is my children. I have kept them safe.

This feeling is better than happiness.

My hands hurt and my neck hurts and my back hurts and I feel sad and I feel lonely and I feel frustrated and irritable and like I want to be nasty to everyone and everything. I really need to start bleeding already. This phase of the cycle is brutal.

What I will do is try as hard as I can to speak gently to the children and I will paint as much as I can this morning. I have a three hour window. If I waste it then I only have myself to blame.

It may not lead to happiness in this moment. That’s ok. Happiness on a moment by moment basis isn’t really the goal. I am building for future me. I am creating because I believe there will be an After Pandemic Time when things are different and I will get to build the community I want so badly to have. I will bring people here, to my lair. I will throw open the doors of my soul and hope that all of the breaking open leads to more love in the world. I will try as hard as I can to tell other people that they should do the things that they feel moved to do. They should embrace the identities that are already true for them. They should yearn and aspire and go do the things that they dream about.

We only get one shot running through this gauntlet.

Go.