Sometimes I like to

Sometimes I like to tune my ukulele to take my mind off buzzing everyday thoughts in my head. Just doing that is enough. Just getting out of bed is enough, someone said to me recently. They said I was a brave person for doing that unfailingly every single day. I just think that you don't have much of a choice. Since this is a public blog, albeit personal (hah, the old sneaky paradox), I cannot write about the alternative thoughts that cross my mind when I have to decide between getting my feet out from the under the blanket and.

I think I'm cursed with the curse of being the one who makes everyone happy. I make everyone happy — happiest — but never feel that way in return. And the only time I feel happiest is when I'm making someone else the happiest. What really becomes of people like me is something I learn everyday, and will keep learning for as long as I live because you can't teach an old dog new tricks. I do, however, believe that you should feed the old dog and give it shelter for just being there.

Just being there is enough, someone said on a podcast I listened to last month. They said, I think that sometimes when things are really difficult for people and if you're just there by them, if you walk besides them, it makes all the difference in the world. So much of life can be lonely, but if you know there's somebody nearby, it changes everything. And I think about that everyday, about the little ways in which the people around me change everything for me. How the two friends who listen to my dark and depressive thoughts every single morning, no less, give me another day to get my feet out from under the blanket. I think of how this other friend thinks my presence helps her during her difficult times, but the truth is that we help each other out. I think of how every stupid joke these two friends make are the only reasons I ever laugh anymore.

Oh, I laugh. I cackle. I cackle into the night, even. I didn't before but I do that now. The least I owe to the people who are putting up with me in the worst of my times is my loud and genuine laughter at their utterly ridiculous humour. I cry too. I put my black stockings and eyeliner on for work almost every morning. I take regular showers. I clean my room and do my laundry. I am a normal human being on the outside. But sometimes, I like to count the reasons to go on on my fingertips, lest I forget, because it only takes a moment to forget, a moment that I won't get back.