I’m happy.

I mean, on occasion I am so ridiculously happy I can’t actually handle it. Recently I’ve been so happy I’ve Cried.

I’d like to point out that depression isn’t about being unhappy. I still suffer from depression and anxiety, despite being a happy person now. Being happy is not what changed my mental health but it is what helps get me through those depressive moods.

When I met my Wife, I started to feel Happiness for the first time in what felt like a long long time. A long lasting happiness and contentment I still carry with me now. I didn’t realise it at first. I didn’t know that the bone deep weariness and loneliness was fading away and being replaced with something else. Something new and wonderful and what I can only describe as better.

I was better.

I was unable to process that happiness at first. Unable to work it all out until it all clicked into place one day and we would lie in bed and talk until it was way to early about how much better we felt together. About how bad it had been and how good it was now.

It’s not all meeting my wife and getting married, it’s been a long journey but she has made that journey worth it’s length, it’s own weariness.

Happier Still

Now I have a son I’m experiencing a new level of that happiness that once more I am unable to process it. His own happiness makes me feel more in one moment than I have in a lifetime sometimes. When I come home and he sees me he smiles and flails; throws his arms and legs up in the air (depending on his position). It’s the most wonderful feeling. When he smiles at me, sometimes I feel this blinding light burst from my chest.

Over the weekend I cried twice. I try not to be ashamed to cry, and if I’m happy and crying I will not hide it. Nor will I apologise for it. I try not to hide it when I’m unhappy but that’s harder and involves different long term issues that I’ve talked about before. Anyway. When we went to the Lantern Festival for our Christmas Trip I cried about fifteen minutes into the route around the Botanical Gardens. I was so happy. I had chosen the right thing to, something I knew Snappy would enjoy. Though I hadn’t realised how much I would enjoy it too or just how beautiful it would be. So I cried. I cried and hugged my wife and kissed my son and carried on enjoying my evening.

I cried the next day too.

We went to the Sea Life centre and there were penguins. And I freaking LOVE penguins. on top of that so did Snappy. He was mesmerised by them as they came up to the glass to them and tried to peck at him and my wife’s skirt as it sat up against the glass. I don’t know what it is about penguins that I love so much, but I do and seeing them and my son so happy made me cry.

It’s hard to handle sometimes, feeling happy. I am used to feeling sad, depressed, anxious. These were the staples of my life for the longest time. I can’t remember when I last felt lonely for more than a few hours at a time. Felt depressed for more than a week or so. Felt that all encompassing sadness that keeps you from doing little more than existing.

Sometimes I miss it. Because it’s easier being something, someone, you were for a long time. It’s hard being this new happy person with a wife and child and a job and responsibilities beyond my own maintenance.

But I wouldn’t go back. I would always choose this. Happiness.

Even if it makes me cry.

The post Coping With Happiness appeared first on Weird and Important.