I'm sometimes a fake.

I’ve mentioned before that as I’ve gotten older, I’ve become better at convincing myself out of feeling a certain way. If I’m down about something in particular, I can tell myself that it’s silly and be able to fool myself into being happier. There have been months at a time that this hasn’t worked for me, that I’m not able to get out of the mental hole that I have dug for myself. It’s awkward because I can’t go as far as to say I’m depressed, because there are people out there who have taken their lives, or even though about it, from the depression that had overtaken them – but what I experience is just as encumbering, just not to that extreme. I can’t claim this, nor do I want to. It’s simply unhappiness; an unhappiness that I can’t shake.

I’ve felt, as of late, much better overall. Except sometimes the feelings of uneasiness creep their way back in, and I can’t help but find myself back there. The part that I think about constantly is how I feel my sadness is not justifiable. I’ve been so fortunate in life overall, I have amazing friends, a roof over my head, food on my table (ok, not all the time…but I’m not starving), and I’m healthy. I feel like I shouldn’t be allowed to be unhappy, that it’s too selfish of an emotion to be experiencing. So on top of the issues that cause this, I feel an extreme sense of guilt for even having them at all.

One afternoon, about a year ago, I sat writing in a coffee shop during my lunch break. A woman next to me asked me if I was sad. By the end of the question, I was already in tears. I said yes; I had not been aware that it was so apparent. She continued to talk to me, telling me if I appear on the outside that I’m happy and confident, eventually I will become so on the inside. I can’t remember now what else she said, but I was crying to her like I had known her my whole life. She blessed me and wished happiness for me, claiming she had almost left, but something kept her there and now she knew what.

I wish I could say that changed my life, that after that moment I kept my head up high and happiness came to me like she had promised. I’m still not truly happy and I wonder what will get me there. I have thoughts of what would, but I can’t create that for me and that’s part of the problem. So I am searching for happiness without that one thing that I know will give it to me. I just didn’t realize it would be this difficult to find what that is that drives me, that keeps me smiling, and isn’t just a fake one trying to convince.