Something that's been on my mind today is happiness. Happiness is a relative term, I think. It is a state of being depending upon perspective. Some people might look at me and say, "That woman is happy." Some might look at me and say, "That woman is unhappy." Hell, I can say both about myself, several different times each day. It changes all the time. I'll admit that I say to myself, "I am not a happy woman," way more often than I catch myself feeling genuinely happy.
And I was thinking to myself that the circumstances of my life are also relative. I have a job, I have enough money to pay my rent and my bills each month, with just enough left over for groceries and dog food. I have friends and family that love me, and I have a dog that I adore, and I am lucky enough to be in college and I'm pretty healthy. I should be genuinely happy. I have not gone down the path I thought I would, I am not where I thought or hoped I'd be by this age, but I have my health, my job, and my friends and family. I think that makes me pretty lucky. The things that I look at as really, truly negative things about my life are the circumstances of my parents lives. They're broke - living paycheck to paycheck. They have to live with my psycho sister, whose mood swings are as unpredictable as the weather. They pay all her bills - which is the reason they're so broke - and they only have one vehicle among the three of them because my psycho sister has broken two vehicles in 9 months. She's cost my parents roughly $40K in the last year - the full cost of the two vehicles, the $15K in lawyer bills and legal fees, plus the cost living. My mom has cashed in every cent of her retirement fund, which I believe at one point was somewhere around $15K or more. Together, my parents make around $100K a year, but somehow have pretty much no money to spend. They're in debt themselves, although it is pretty low for people their age - mostly credit card debt. The Suburban is paid off, the truck (which is totally unfixable, as in needs a new engine, I guess) is paid off, they've refinanced the house and pay a pretty small amount of interest. There are odds and ends that they pay for that they could eliminate to save money, but they're not doing that.
I think, if I could separate myself from my family, I'd be happy. I think, if my family could separate themselves from my sister, things would get exponentially better. Or, if my sister would grow the hell up and support herself. I think if she were supporting herself and my parents were just supporting the kids when we've got them, it would be easier. If I could give my parents $50K or even $25K, I would do it without even thinking. I'd invest about $10K for them to start, and then give them $25K so they could pay everything off that needs paying off, and so they could live comfortably. If I could, I'd ship my goddamn sister off to a mental institution where she can be as fucking irresponsible and careless as she wants without making my parents financially responsible for her fuck-ups.
I feel like that's what a good solution would be to bringing me closer to what I consider "happiness." I love my parents very much, and it is breaking my heart watching my sister drown them. I swear to all that is good and holy that if I ever come into any kind of substantial money, or even if it's a little bit of money that I don't need, I will give them most of it.
I'm worried that my car isn't going to survive much longer. I've been trying to think of what I can afford in terms of a new car or car payments, but it's not great. I'm sort of working on faith that I will have better options once I'm graduated, but I need to start preparing for things to be exactly the same after that, too. The doc I saw at school on Tuesday suggested that I go to Career Services and get hooked up with them so that maybe I have a chance come December instead of just relying on my own non-abilities in job-hunting. If I ever have time, I want to make a really interesting and creative resume. I'm guessing that won't be until sometime in November, probably around Thanksgiving break.
I'm also worried about my school workload once the writing class begins in mid-October. It's not that I can't keep up right now, but my energy has been so low that I can't get everything read that needs to be read for both my social sciences classes and still have time to really study Anatomy in-depth.
Anyway, like I said before, happiness is relative. I think I should consider myself a happy person, but from my point of view, I don't feel that way. It's not enough for me.
In other news, I slept really well last night. Took an ambien, fell asleep around 8pm and slept all the way through the night, no waking up. It felt amazing. I may or may not do that again tonight, since I get to sleep in in the morning and I have no plans during the day, except to probably go running and/or to the dog park and two hours at the gym. The gym will probably be tomorrow night.
I'm not sure what the plan for tonight is, but I gotta say, I love not having any plans at all. I don't even feel like I need to go straight to bed after work, because I'm not sleepy. It's a wonderful change.
And I was thinking to myself that the circumstances of my life are also relative. I have a job, I have enough money to pay my rent and my bills each month, with just enough left over for groceries and dog food. I have friends and family that love me, and I have a dog that I adore, and I am lucky enough to be in college and I'm pretty healthy. I should be genuinely happy. I have not gone down the path I thought I would, I am not where I thought or hoped I'd be by this age, but I have my health, my job, and my friends and family. I think that makes me pretty lucky. The things that I look at as really, truly negative things about my life are the circumstances of my parents lives. They're broke - living paycheck to paycheck. They have to live with my psycho sister, whose mood swings are as unpredictable as the weather. They pay all her bills - which is the reason they're so broke - and they only have one vehicle among the three of them because my psycho sister has broken two vehicles in 9 months. She's cost my parents roughly $40K in the last year - the full cost of the two vehicles, the $15K in lawyer bills and legal fees, plus the cost living. My mom has cashed in every cent of her retirement fund, which I believe at one point was somewhere around $15K or more. Together, my parents make around $100K a year, but somehow have pretty much no money to spend. They're in debt themselves, although it is pretty low for people their age - mostly credit card debt. The Suburban is paid off, the truck (which is totally unfixable, as in needs a new engine, I guess) is paid off, they've refinanced the house and pay a pretty small amount of interest. There are odds and ends that they pay for that they could eliminate to save money, but they're not doing that.
I think, if I could separate myself from my family, I'd be happy. I think, if my family could separate themselves from my sister, things would get exponentially better. Or, if my sister would grow the hell up and support herself. I think if she were supporting herself and my parents were just supporting the kids when we've got them, it would be easier. If I could give my parents $50K or even $25K, I would do it without even thinking. I'd invest about $10K for them to start, and then give them $25K so they could pay everything off that needs paying off, and so they could live comfortably. If I could, I'd ship my goddamn sister off to a mental institution where she can be as fucking irresponsible and careless as she wants without making my parents financially responsible for her fuck-ups.
I feel like that's what a good solution would be to bringing me closer to what I consider "happiness." I love my parents very much, and it is breaking my heart watching my sister drown them. I swear to all that is good and holy that if I ever come into any kind of substantial money, or even if it's a little bit of money that I don't need, I will give them most of it.
I'm worried that my car isn't going to survive much longer. I've been trying to think of what I can afford in terms of a new car or car payments, but it's not great. I'm sort of working on faith that I will have better options once I'm graduated, but I need to start preparing for things to be exactly the same after that, too. The doc I saw at school on Tuesday suggested that I go to Career Services and get hooked up with them so that maybe I have a chance come December instead of just relying on my own non-abilities in job-hunting. If I ever have time, I want to make a really interesting and creative resume. I'm guessing that won't be until sometime in November, probably around Thanksgiving break.
I'm also worried about my school workload once the writing class begins in mid-October. It's not that I can't keep up right now, but my energy has been so low that I can't get everything read that needs to be read for both my social sciences classes and still have time to really study Anatomy in-depth.
Anyway, like I said before, happiness is relative. I think I should consider myself a happy person, but from my point of view, I don't feel that way. It's not enough for me.
In other news, I slept really well last night. Took an ambien, fell asleep around 8pm and slept all the way through the night, no waking up. It felt amazing. I may or may not do that again tonight, since I get to sleep in in the morning and I have no plans during the day, except to probably go running and/or to the dog park and two hours at the gym. The gym will probably be tomorrow night.
I'm not sure what the plan for tonight is, but I gotta say, I love not having any plans at all. I don't even feel like I need to go straight to bed after work, because I'm not sleepy. It's a wonderful change.
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