Tag Archives: happiness

Chasing happiness

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.

Stop and appreciate the moments of joy

I’ve done ALL THE THERAPY and one of the things I’ve learned is that when you are depressed or anxious or both at once… it’s extra important to stop and take moments to notice a job well done. Even if you feel like a fuck up all the time, that’s probably not true. Sometimes you get it right. Stop then. Notice. Try to let your brain experience a few moments of feeling something other than self hatred.

Right now I am watching the cats climb around on the climbing gym in the middle of the lounge. It is one of the most charming sights I’ve ever seen.

Our lounge is definitely the largest room I have ever had in a house I have lived in. It’s easily twice the size of the living room we had in California and it has a sloping roof that goes up to about 12 or 15 feet. (I have to measure soon. I will know for sure then.) The room is pretty packed right now. I spent all day moving stuff around. My family never once challenged me on why I wanted to do all the shifting, they just helped.

The Christmas tree is massive and the pile of presents is kind of ridiculous. Well, ridiculously large looking but an awful lot of it are things we genuinely need. EC has a bed frame in there. We all got stuff for dealing with the climate–that’s a big deal! There are kitchen things in the pile that we will use for making family food. There are hair supplies and soaps and bath bombs (not a necessity) and face cleaners.

Ok, there are some purely frivolous things too. My kids didn’t ship their toys to Scotland; they got rid of almost everything they owned. There’s a doll house and dolls and toddler learning toys. There are some bath toys. Lots of art supplies; both of the big kids have completely used up their stock of art paper so now they each have a new sketchbook. There is a sewing machine; EC has asked for one for a few years now. It seems like a great time. MC begged for a keyboard. Given that every time my children get the chance to bang on a piano they spend hours doing that… it seems like a pretty reasonable gift.

And books. Of course there are books. More books than I would normally buy in one holiday but A) they were phenomenally cheap and B) we are absolutely book starved. No regrets.

It’s a lot. I won’t do a Christmas this big again, probably in my whole life. We are still just starting and after this we won’t have room for so much.

The play gym can fit down in the apartment when the lounge needs to be used for another purpose. It also folds up for handy storage! I love it. I could never have gotten something like this in California. Here an outdoor play structure like I had there would be fairly unusable a big chunk of the year.

Circumstances change.

Our strict budget starts in a week. I’m ready.

When I turn off the seizure causing blinking lights (the kids love them) and just have the still lights to illuminate this room, it looks pretty magical. I will leave on some lights all night long so that when the kids wake up they will come in to a lighted room. The sun isn’t up till after 9am right now. I told them they couldn’t come out till 5am. They have watches! Monitor your own behavior! But the light are necessary.

The future is unknowable. I don’t know what challenges will come. But right now, we are all set for a magical Christmas.

Stop. Notice. This is something I helped create too. We did it.

I think I can go to sleep now, at a reasonable hour. I have a fun day ahead of me.

Mrs. Brightside

As I was unloading the dishwasher earlier I was struck by how clear and pretty one of the containers was. It’s just a piece of plastic–normally I don’t think I actually even look at it. But it struck me suddenly as being quite beautiful.

Home Depot didn’t deliver the insulation and drywall until almost 4. This totally shot my plans of working in the garage today. Instead I got to spend almost six hours hanging out with Taylor and I got a massage. I think that is a wonderful trade. I feel so much better.

My plans for this evening are canceled due to my friend having a migraine. I’m sorry that she is feeling poorly but I’m kind of glad that Shanna and I get to hang out at home without any other distractions. She can use some mommy-time.

I guess the glass is half full today.

just… happy

I was thinking earlier today. I was in a funk earlier this week and for part of last week and it was annoying, but really not so bad. I have been sad for short periods in the past few months. I get angry every so often. But I haven’t felt self-loathing in a long time. I can’t remember when I last hated myself. It’s kind of weird to think about, but I loathed myself for most of my life. I remember what it is like to think terrible thoughts about myself constantly and I’m surprised I didn’t notice it stopping. Somehow I just let it go.

That’s really awesome. 🙂 Man my life is good.

Oh, and in other news: Shanna sat up from laying down today for the first time. 🙂

Good little housewife

I like the icon. It expresses to me how deep and thoughtful most posts are.

That said: man I’ve been a good housewife today. Because I am exactly this dorky, here is my list of accomplishments…

-I figured out Quicken. It was a major pain in the ass, but I did it. I used to keep track of our budget stuff using Excel, but it took forever and I am just not willing to put in that many hours of labor anymore. Hopefully this’ll work out.
-Called home inspector for an appointment.
-Put up the craigslist ad to get rid of the table. This involved going out and taking pictures of it so I’m happy I got it done.
-Did two loads of laundry.
-Did the dishes and otherwise tidied up the kitchen.
-Finished the last touches on cleaning up the garage. It is once again able to accept the car. w00t
-Changed three dirty diapers and caught one pee. I’ve been distracted.
-Did all the necessary steps to get the property tax check in the mail. Sometimes I suck at this.
-Put up more pictures of Shanna: http://picasaweb.google.com/somethingdifferent/Shanna
-Ate lunch
-I’ve cycled the Brita pitcher 6 times refreshing my water storage in the refrigerator. This is a big deal because it means I am more likely to actually drink water in the next few days. (I only drink it cold.)
-I went and had some cookies. (I haven’t used this euphemism in a while. ha.)

Hmmmm. What should I do next? Shanna is flirting heavily and seems to be leaning towards playing with her. Maybe that’s all the day needs to be perfect. 🙂

So this is what freedom feels like.

At the very least I have two weeks of freedom. Wow. That’s pretty incredible. I am still in my Spanish classes until May if I wuss out on the translation test, but honestly they take up about 7 hours of week for class time and homework time. That’s just not hitting my radar compared to what I’ve been doing for uhm years. My job is to take care of Shanna and do at least my share of housework. If I do more than my share of housework then Noah has more free time to spend with me and he’s in a generally better mood–which is a pretty damn good trade-off in my book.

I started off this freedom by cleaning up the garage to the point where we can now put our car in it! I’m thrilled because putting Shanna in and out in the rain really blows. I also cleaned the bathtub. Today I will putz through more cleaning and laundry. I also want to do cooking and prep stuff for meals for the week because we eat better when I do that.

My projects for this week include: putting furniture together, more house cleaning [we have a lot of cobwebs, finish dusting, finish cleaning the bathroom, maybe vacuum the living room, do a real scrub down of the kitchen], read more books to Shanna, start sorting Christmas stuff [I’m so excited about Christmas this year it isn’t even funny. I’m not doing the major decorating stuff till after Thanksgiving, but I can get a head start on stuff like Christmas cards so that I don’t feel much pressure in December], and enjoy the fact that I don’t have to read anything I don’t want to read! Do you know how many years it has been since I had no pressure about what to read?! For the past five years I have always had it hanging over my head that I needed to do reading for the exams. I haven’t always done it but the pressure was always present.

That said: what books do you like that I should add to my reading list? I may read a summary online and decide oh hell no but feel free to make suggestions. 🙂 I don’t even know what is out there past the canon…

Oh! and posts I want to write: “Ok snarky bitch, here is why I use cloth diapers despite your snotty article you sent me”, “Why are some books included in the canon while others are excluded”, and “Why I’m feeling some unpleasant feelings about the constant barrage of requests for money.”

Just another day in paradise.

So I’ve been feeling boring lately because all I write about is complaining about boredom. So I’ve been thinking about things.

This is what it feels like to have everything I always wanted. I have the best husband ever in the history of the world. He is supportive, communicative, willing to do anything I ask, and he’s the best sex partner I’ve ever had. That’s not a combination I thought existed. I win.

I’ve wanted to have a baby for a long time. Ok, so I haven’t had the easiest pregnancy in the history of the world–but by and large it’s not so bad. I’ve actually been aware of the bedrest risk since before I got pregnant. I have Menieres and it’s super common to end up on bedrest. It gets increasingly common as you get older which is why I needed to start having babies fairly young. (I don’t actually think that my preterm labor was related to the Menieres, but the risk was present for me anyway so I’m not as shocked as I could be.) And for all that my pregnancy isn’t the easiest it hasn’t actually been that hard. Given the prize I have at the end of the journey it’s been worth absolutely all the difficulty.

I may not live in the house of my absolute dreams, but I live in a comfortable house. We own this house and can afford the mortgage. We have all the financial safety I ever frantically aspired to. Sure, as soon as my ability to eat settles down we need to go back to cooking and stop eating out all the time, but I won’t want to go out with a baby anyway. 🙂 For now I am getting to eat out as much as my poverty-stricken-inner-little-girl wants to. This is cool.

I have amazing friends. They are supportive and awesome. When I put up a message asking to borrow DVDs within 24 hours I had more than 50 of them delivered to my house. If I were up for being social I could see people seven days a week and have good quality time with each person if I wanted. That’s really amazing to me.

So yeah. I’m happy. My life is really great. Yeah, I get angsty sometimes but that’s becoming a lower a lower percentage of my time because when I stop to think about what I have I am blown away by how awesome my life is.

And now I go snuggle my Noah.

What’s in a name?

I generally won’t put my name on this journal, but some things must be said.

According to the DMV and Social Security my name is Kristine Lenora Gibbs. Wow, this is so real.

It is very odd that I feel like things are still unsettled and yet they are getting so much more comfortable. We bicker and fight more than is strictly speaking a great thing, but it seems like we are making progress. At least we don’t keep bitching about the same things. 🙂

I’m so very happy that I made this decision. Please God, let me keep this.

Being grateful

I believe it is important to notice the good stuff that happens lest you take it for granted. So here I go.

Angela–you have become a wonderful mom and I am grateful you are in my life. Thank you for bringing me a present.
Miss Jenny–thank you for remembering my birthday and restating my status as the Princess. I’m grateful.
Miss Sara–thank you for remembering my birthday and giving me permission to be demanding. I have a hard time thinking it is ok.
Noah–thank you for going to bed early with me and tolerating my mood swings.
Spot–thank you for trying so hard to be considerate of me and the attention you have been giving has been great.
Deborah and Anthony–thank you for including me in your important day. I appreciated it far more than you know.

That’s just a little bit of the goodness in my life in the past week. Yay.

Have I mentioned that I’m tired? But after last night I know that 8:30 is a wee bit too early to go to sleep.

Happy thoughts

As I was walking to my car after my therapy session today I listed to a conversation about the removal of “planet” status from Pluto between three guys doing landscaping. This made me ridiculously happy. They were talking about who has the right to decide status about different things and then it lead to some pretty insightful comments about government. As a teacher I was so happy I was wiggling. They were so thinking critically. 🙂

And then my brjulia called me!! YAY! I loves my Julia.

So today can’t be bad. It just isn’t allowed to be.

Progress.

So we’re up to 8 days of suck. It’s been exciting. But we’ve also been steadily making progress. We’ve figured out how to work around my, “I don’t announce in a group that I am upset–EVER” thing in order to usefully communicate. That was good. We’ve talked more about how time should be spent in general at group events. We have talked a lot about what we each want from play and how to get there. And last night we made up an Actual Rule. We modeled it off a friend. His rule is that he can’t date anyone crazier than him cause HE is the psycho in the relationship. We modified that a bit. Noah isn’t allowed to date anyone crazier than me. I’m the psycho in his life. This pleases me, because as much as I am crazy–I don’t deny this–I’m a fairly low drama crazy. Other crazy chicks are very high drama and they make my life suck. No more. 🙂

And you know, the best part? That as we are going through some conversations that are not fun and not easy to have, well they are getting easier. I’m feeling less defensive and hostile before we even begin cause he is actually listening to me and responding to my concerns on an ongoing basis, so why get hostile? And boy my throat is happy about the lower volumes. I think I’m picking the right boy.

Oh, and Angela, Joe, and Ali–thank you. Thank you more than I can ever express. I love you all soooo much. I’m grateful that you are my friends. Thank you for listening to my angst and hurt and helping me get through them to the useful parts.

Evil speaketh its name

And it is… Procrastination.

I swear to god I have made a lot of progress today. It’s just not super easy to see because I am a dork and I get stuck in small details. *sigh* I went over to Ikea today looking for a few specific things and then realized that I didn’t know what sizes/colors I needed so the trip was kind of silly. But I wandered around and got ideas. Then I went to Target for big plastic containers. I didn’t buy too many because I wasn’t sure how things were going to shake out. I came home and realized I need a bunch more. S’ok. Buying more is easier than returning stuff I don’t need.

Cleaning house is a pain when I don’t want to do much with Noah’s stuff without him around. I don’t yet actually feel comfortable just going through his stuff without him present. I’m sure I’ll get over it. 🙂 But at Target, in honor of telling Noah that I would actually marry him (so far I’ve been saying maybe) I bought a wedding organizer and promptly almost had a panic attack. Jesus Christ. Am I actually doing this?! Looks like I am. Alright. Suck it up and get through it. (For the record: the scary part is the wedding, I’m looking forward to being married.) So now I am procrastinating mightily because I just pissed off my back by trying to move the monstrous filing cabinet without help. Sometimes my impatience is counter productive.

Things to deal with in the next few months:
Start actual wedding plans.
Remodel the house.
Put together at least two more unit plans before the start of school so that I walk in with a full year plan for juniors and a good start on… whatever else they give me. (WHOO HOOO! Just checked work email. I have three classes of Juniors and two classes of comp/lit. They are the low performing/behavior problem kids. I’m really excited! No really–I asked for them. 🙂
Get ready for Burning Man.
Am I helping organize TNG4?! Scary thought. It’s been brought up and discussions are starting… that will be decided in the next month probably.
Oh dear lord. I think that is going to be enough to eat my brain for the next year. Good thing I’m plucky!

(Travel stuff coming soon… I swear.)

A quick babble

I had a lovely weekend. I got to spend some time with multiple really awesome people. Snuggly time. Time walking and talking with a really terrific girl. Time driving around admiring houses with another spiffy girl. Lots and lots of Noah time–not enough, but that is the state of my life right now.

This weekend it was pointed out to me that my level of social connectedness is highly unusual. What a strange thought. Me? Have lots of friends? Whatever happened to the prophesy that no one would ever like me because I am such an awful person? Guess mom was wrong again. 🙂

I’m looking at a beautiful bouquet of roses. I’m glancing around my messy living room and deciding how I want to clean it today. How I want to paint it next month. What I think it will look like in 5 years.

I am so very happy.

Schmoop

I was informed that I don’t talk enough about Noah. Ok, so that isn’t exactly how that information was conveyed–but close enough so I am going to call it that.

Noah rocks my world. He is supportive and caring and he sees me. He thinks I am the right kind of bitchy. 🙂 He loves me so much that it amazes and delights me. How did I get so lucky? I believe he is the best man for me. That said there are some things coming up which I am not ready to talk about quite yet. But those of you who are totally shocked that stuff is happening with Noah–get over it. 😛

And Noah, I still won’t wear red then. 😛

Another episode of “My Surreal Life”

I am running around getting ready for Portland Boy’s visit. I want fast, energetic happy music to push myself along with. So what do I put on?

The Supertones.

Uhm … that means nothing to you? Oh–you mean you don’t listen to Christian Ska?

So I’m bopping around singing along with “I chose Christ and here I am today. I’m in Christ and Christ’s in me!” as I prepare for a visit from my lover. Yeah. Weird.