Hubby: What? To be more pleasant?
Me: Yeah.
Hubby: No. It’s not working.
Happiness has been on my mind a lot lately. Apparently, it
has not been on my face.
Christmas, my most favourite time of the year, is now over,
leaving scraps of wrapping, fallen ornaments, and bits of Lego all over my
house. I’ll clean it up eventually. But for now, it’s resolution time, and that
means looking back over the ruins of 2012.
Only, I don’t particularly want to look back. The only
things back there for me are heartbreak, nausea, vomiting, and more heartbreak.
Of course, there were lots of lovely people doing lovely things, but mostly,
when I look back at 2012, I feel like throwing up. I remember feeling like I
was dying (because I was). I remember wondering how my children would go on
without me. I remember hospital food, and IV drips, and lots of pain. I don’t
want to remember any of that. So, there will be no reflecting on 2012. There
will only be moving forward.
Which brings me to resolutions. Seeing as 2012 was by far
the worst year of my life, I am hoping to make 2013 the best. And that means
finally doing what I love (rather than what’s “legitimate” or “respectable”).
It means being gentler, more patient, and ideally, funnier (because who doesn’t
want to be funnier?). Most importantly, it means being happier.
Among the many books that I have devoured recently, I just
read Gretchen Rubin’s The Happiness Project.
While Rubin did not wait for a life crisis to inspire her to be happier, it
seems that I did. I look back over the last few years and see a stressed out
young mother doing a PhD who drank way too much coffee and had way too little
fun. I see a woman who hardly smiled, rarely laughed, and was far too impatient
with her young son. I’m sure that’s not what everyone saw – I kept my friends,
so I can’t have been too
miserable, but I do know that I wasn’t terribly happy. And then I
self-destructed.
Disappointingly, I’m still not that happy. I mean, I’m happy
to be alive and my marriage is good and I’m grateful for all the things that I
have, so in the long-view I’m certainly happy, but on a day-to-day basis I
don’t score too well. I don’t skip and sing around the house. I waste too much
time on Facebook. I’m very easily irritated. I readily admit that I can be
snappish. I love my children but they also drive me absolutely out of my mind.
I don’t do most of the activities that I find really fun. I’ve also been
noticing lately that I get accused of being grumpy even when I’m not, which
makes me think that I’m not exuding the cheerful personality that I would like
to have. My doctor pointed out that at least some of this irritability can be
attributed to some (permanent) side effects of radiation, which made me even
crankier because it means I have very little control over the situation. Was I
destined to be grumpy forever?
I decided that this just wasn’t acceptable. I want to be
happier and I want to be happier now. So
2013 is the year to do it. Up until now, I’ve just been trying to survive.
Happiness or self-fulfillment had no place in my day-to-day try-not-to-die
regimen.
But I just read a different book (Wild by Cheryl Strayed) in which the author’s mother dies
when the author is 22, which scatters her remaining family and puts her into a
downward spiral of mourning, drugs and promiscuity for years. I pictured my
darling daughter trying to cope without me, having her wedding and babies
without me there, and I decided that I must do every possible thing within my
power to stay alive for her and my son. I will go vegan and organic, I will
drink green smoothies for breakfast, swallow boatloads of supplements and suck back horrible tasting Vitamin C gels.
I will eliminate stressful endeavors (very hard for a type-A personality). I
will meditate. I will run (but not too much). And I will do my best to be
happy. Because happier people are healthier, and they definitely make better
parents.
Following Rubin’s lead, I’ve decided to break the upcoming
year into twelve resolution themes, one per month, such as energy, marriage, and parenting.
Within those themes will be specific tasks and goals that I will try to
accomplish to make me more energetic, more loving, and, well, happier. The idea
is that by having these ongoing resolutions throughout the year, I will be more
focused on choosing happiness whenever possible. The plan will remind me to
choose fun activities as often as I can, to say no to things that are draining,
to keep my house tidy (clutter makes me very grumpy), to clean out my closets,
and to generally smile more.
We always say: “Life is too short...” Well, life really is too short to be grumpy or unhappy or bored. So
for the next few months I will be blogging about finding happiness after
cancer. Maybe some of you will feel inclined to join me.
