This is another one of those scary journal entries, that is both liberating and also depressing to look back on. It’s scary to think I ever thought the way I did and it is liberating knowing that I am no longer that person who harbours those feelings.
August 12, 2017
You know that moment you realise you’re so at peace, like you’re exactly where you want to be, like life couldn’t get any better than moment right there? And you feel this sort of hope, and safety for your future? A sort of contentness, a bliss, where you decide you’d be okay if only this feeling came more often. Like a reassuring hand on your shoulder letting you know you made it, that everything is falling into place and that you are going to be okay. That feeling of genuine deep to the soul happiness? Yeah?
I can’t relate. I’ve only ever seen it in the movies or in books.
Do people actually get this feeling, is it a thing I wonder?
The closest I have ever gotten to this sort of feeling is when its a hot sunny day and I’m in the back seat of my parents car as a kid, the car packed with all of us including the dogs and all our bags of clothes and books for the summer at the trailer up north in Wasaga, old songs are blasting on the radio while we eat our snacks from the gas station and feel the warm summer breeze coming in through the windows.
But then a song will make me sad or I will think about how things aren’t always like this and how this feeling will be gone and life is just a series of searching for these moments and I get down again. The feeling never lasts. Or I will get a feeling of joy, I guess you could call it, when I am up at the trailer waking up early to the sounds of the birds chirping and people out and about. I make fresh coffee and something to eat and grab a book or my notebook and pen and I sit on the deck and spend my morning drinking coffee while reading or writing in my book.
Those mornings I feel a sort of joy and I think of how life would be so simple and so enjoyable if I could just do what I love everyday and not have to be burdened with the stresses of everyday life. But then I overthink it and I psyche myself out. Or I have a conversation with someone that goes wrong and my mood turns jaded, giving me no hope for the even the rest of the day let alone the rest of my life.
I remember being young and when the family and I we’re all just hanging out, having good conversation, sharing meals, laughing together, and my dad would say “see girls, this is what life is all about.” I liked the peace I felt within myself but I guess I didn’t get the full extent of what he meant until later in life.
We get so caught with minuscule tasks we do during the day, our mundane routines and tasks we feel accustomed to that we don’t really take the time to embrace the moments while they are there and really live in them.
If you really take it in, most of our days are filled with mindless, unimportant tasks referred to as responsibilities. We tell ourselves how badly we want to focus on the important things in life, the things we really want to do, but there never is any time for those things.
Something as simple as getting up in the morning consists of making your bed, picking out clothes, ironing them, washing up, feeding the animals, cooking something, cleaning the mess you made. Realizing you forgot to buy milk, you go buy milk then realize you forgot to pay a bill so you go do that. Now its lunch time, you make lunch and feed the animals- the list is endless. Then there will be dishes to do, clothes to clean, fold, then a person who needs help with something or a neighbour who catches you off guard and asks you to come over for game night. Helpless.
We watch our days fill up with petty activities, phone calls, doctors appointments. And oh lets not forget about the 40+ hours we waste slaving away at a job, to make it possible to survive, to pay the bills, feed the animals, make breakfast and do all the errands we spend so much of our days doing. Spend 40 hours a week so we can spend the rest of our time wasting it with things “needed” to help us live normal lives. When do we ever get time for us?
My biggest struggle is knowing that time doesn’t stop, that life is just a series of moments and all you have is the memories and maybe a few pictures to remind you of them along the way. I want to be able to store feelings of elation, to feel how I want to feel at any time of the day. I don’t like knowing there will be so many different stages of my life and that I will get older and probably more angry and cynical. I hate time. But my goal is to just make life a series of these content moments. To try not to overthink so much in the moment but instead just live in it. And to try my best not to spend so much time procrastinating and wasting the time I do have, away.
I’m sure we all can understand that sometimes life is boring if we don’t find things to distract us from time to time. My goal is go try my best to make the best of the little things and find joy in the moment I’m living in. I’ve come a long way already and hope to keep going uphill on my journey.
If you are interested in reading more journal entries while I was going through one of the toughest times of my life, check out the Dark Journal Entries section of my site to find more.
