Happiness a Year Later

2018 ends tonight.  This was the year I aimed for happiness.  Looking back, happy isn’t exactly the word I would pick to describe the year my marriage officially ended.  I like data, so I went back to that happiness quiz that I took a year ago.  At the beginning of January 2018, my happiness score was 3.24, which was slightly below average.  I took the quiz again and got 5.21, which is very happy and above average.  The skeptic in me says this must be an anomaly because it’s Christmas vacation and the data lover in me thinks I should take the quiz over several days or weeks to get an average.  But I’ll conclude that my happiness has improved over the past year.

I only made it through nine months of my happy 2018 plan, but I’m happier now than I was a year ago.  I still have moments of sadness and anger.  I’ve learned through my year of pursuing happiness that it isn’t about being in a constant state euphoria.  Negative emotions still exist.  I’ve learned to let myself experience the bad, but not dwell and ruminate on it.  As difficult as going through a divorce was, it taught me that I can do anything and that the only person that controls my happiness is myself.

Scrolling back through 2018, I learned a lot about myself and developed healthy strategies for coping.  When my feelings get the best of me, I now want to meditate, go for a walk, or journal.  Depending on the strength of my emotions, I may do all three.  I’m on 231 consecutive days of meditation although I may have fallen asleep during some of those.  Meditation has become an essential part of my life and out of all the happiness strategies I’ve tried this year, it is the one that’s stuck and is the one that I turn to when life is overwhelming.

The other thing I learned is that pursuing happiness it is a constant journey with no destination.  It’s like exercising, you can’t workout for a year and then stop and stay fit.  So my happiness journey will continue.

Welcome 2019!

A new year and new paths to explore.

The Big Day

Tomorrow is divorce day, one year and six months after my marriage came to a sudden end.  Blindsided describes it well.

I’ve been so busy the past couple of months that I haven’t had the time to sit and think about this impending day.  I guess it’s good that I haven’t been ruminating over my woes, but sometimes I go in the opposite direction of rumination and to avoidance.  I avoid thinking about something difficult and think that if I ignore it, it’ll go away.  Unfortunately life doesn’t work that way.  The sun rises and sets making the days slip away and the unwelcome day gets closer and closer.

I’m not sure how I feel about this day other than this anxiety that makes my gut send out waves of nausea.  Part of me feels relieved that it will be over with, to get on the other side, to have my freedom, to not be attached in any way to this person that I no longer love or even like.  Another part of me feels like a failure and dreads the title of divorcee, the label that says I wasn’t cut out to be a wife.  (Yes, I know this isn’t a rationale thought, but feelings aren’t always the most rationale things.)  Another part of me grieves for the life I planned with this person, a stable life where I could depend on him and know what to expect.  Then there’s the angry part, the rage that builds up that makes me want to scream at the unfairness of it all.

I don’t have a clue which feeling is going to win tomorrow.  My biggest dread is seeing him.  I haven’t seen him in over six months.  I keep telling myself that it won’t be a big deal, I don’t love him anymore.  I don’t even know him anymore.  It’ll be like meeting a stranger and signing some papers.  I’m pretty sure this is more of my denial.  I can’t erase eight years of my life with someone even if he didn’t turn out to be the person I thought he was.

I watched a TED talk about marriages falling apart because of affairs causing people to have PTSD symptoms.  After reading more about it, I could definitely see some of these symptoms in myself.  I’ll be going along with life, everything’s fine, I may feel content and even happy, then there’s a trigger.  Something reminds me of him, or her, or us and I crumble.  My anxiety goes into overdrive, I can’t sleep, I can’t think straight, I feel like I’m drowning.  It’s like I’m reliving the first moment of my world falling apart and all the progress I’ve made vanishes.

He is my landmine and tomorrow I have to look this trigger in the eye and see what the experience brings.

 

 

My emotions feel like a raging river!