1:35AM On Bitterness

It's late. I've been sick for four days. I can't breathe - so I can't sleep. My nose is chaffed from sneezing, tissues, and snot, as well as stinging from the lotion I put on it. MIKA is playing on my Pandora and sweetening the bitter mood I've been in as of late.

For whatever reason, I can't let myself be happy. I find ways to keep myself miserable. To keep myself the "tortured artist" if you will. I see this inability to be happy and I'm frustrated. Angered. Pissed. Which is a result from my inability to be happy. Because if I knew how to be happy, I would see my inability to be happy and sublimate my unhappiness. Find a way to be happy. But no. I see my inability to be happy and it makes me even unhappier. Litost, I believe is what Milan Kundera calls it. Seeing your state of misery and being miserable about it.

Shit just got meta.

My throat is dry. Dusty. Ancient. As if it were the tomb to some ancient ruler that has just been discovered and opened. I cough as fresh air floods my lungs.

I always find something to be angry about. Something to be frustrated with. It's easier to be happy when I'm taking medication - I don't look for the negative as much. Everything doesn't rub me the wrong way. Seeing people together and happy doesn't make me disgusted. Doesn't make me jealous.

I have a hard time being happy for others. Because I'm jealous? Because I don't know how to be happy and I'm angry that they do? That they somehow know this secret and won't share it with me? Something like that.

Cough syrup might be more effective in opening this ancient tomb.

Part of the problem is that I don't try to be happy. I see people being happy and instead of trying to do what they do, I sit and I'm angry because I don't know how to let myself be happy. I see someone I like, someone I used to date, someone I had unrequited love for find someone else. And I'm bitter.

Bitter. Bitter. Bitter.

And jealous. Can't forget jealousy of course.

And the thing is, this is what I wanted. I didn't want to get close to him because... because of a gazillion things. Because of distance. Because of people. Because he has roots where he lives and I don't. Because the thought of settling down - of growing roots - terrifies me. Because I want to live in the city - in Chicago. Because I want to travel. Because I don't share well. Because the last time I felt this intensely about someone, it took me three years to get over her. Because there's no way he feels the same intensity for me. Because I don't want to spend another three years of my life being stuck on someone, trying to get over someone, trying to forget someone.

And he's found someone. Someone who lives in my city - not his. And they're making it work, apparently. So it seems. And he's coming here, to visit him soon, apparently.

And so I'm bitter.

Be happy. Be happy. Be happy.



Can I get an updated instruction manual for this happiness shit?