"Happy"?

We all strive for this thing called happiness that seems, at times, nearly impossible to obtain and at others unimaginable to live without. Happiness is elusive to the downtrodden. But that's only because we're the ones preventing it from visiting.

Why would we prevent ourselves from being happy?

Some of us, myself once included, might think we're not deserving of being happy. We believe that we're making the world worse off with us being around, and as such deserve to be depressed whilst we bring gloom to others. The only thing that kept this sort of thought from taking my presence from this planet was knowing that my death would bring more sorrow, more anger and pity to the few people that believed in me.

In a sense, I've tried to be the least consequential to the world as I possibly can. Oozing depression wasn't something I ever wanted to do, to see the disdain on their faces was something I could hardly stand. But it works both ways, I've come to realize. If, instead of with sorrow, I can see the world and smile. My smiles can bring others smiles of happiness, not out of triumph over some lowly soul, which was how the smiles I used to bring were like.

So perhaps I'm not as inconsequential as I'd wished, but at least what I bring now is more happiness most days. I still have days of calamity, but they are fewer than used to be.

But what of other people, ones that don't think they deserve their torment? What keeps them from happiness?

Thinking that what they've done or where they are now is too far lost, to where the warmth of the sunlight and the magical beauty of the world cannot reach is more so their dilemma. I don't know how to help you as much as the latter group, and I'm sorry that it's such. But I will say that talking it out, writing or venting your emotions in some way is one of the best things you can do. No matter what you've done, save for being someone that has killed a thousand people for no apparent reason, you deserve goodness in your life too.

Some things, no matter how you find yourself, to keep spirits up, is to listen to music. I won't say necessarily that it must be cheery music, because at times that can make us angrier or more upset. But music in general has a way of altering how we see the world, even if it's in the minutest of ways. Find ways to make yourself feel better about who you are. I'll list below some of the things I do in order to face the world.

• Smile even when there's nothing particular to smile at - you'll just naturally start to smile if you do this. Just don't do it when you're not in a situation where smiling is a bad idea (e.g. being questioned by the police for suspected murder)
• Stop looking in mirrors every two minutes - if you have body image issues, this will really help. It's fine if you look before you leave the restroom to make sure everything's tucked away where it should be, but don't go to extremes. If you look in the mirror too much, you'll see what no one else will ever even notice about you unless they're trying intentionally to find something wrong with you. 
• Even if it's "weird", dance in the rain - I mean to say, do whatever you feel like doing (legally/ethically good, I mean) even if no one is planning on joining in on your adventure. It's your life that you're living. You're not living theirs. What you do is for YOU to make YOU happy. And FYI, weird is just another way of saying "not been done before, or done often". Weird isn't bad.
• Believe in what you think is right. Find your own morals to live by, and they may be the same as someone else's morals, but they may also differ. Someone may say that sex before marriage is sinful and you may think "as long as there's no risk of communicable disease, what's the big deal". To each their own, but live by what morals you set for yourself - it'll really help in the long run.

• Fun Fact: My immediate family is Christian Nominally Agnostic. We celebrate Christmas and Easter and such, but don't go to church or read/quote the bible. We've been called Heathens before, so spare that, please. My beliefs are slightly different - I'm Pagan of the unknown variety based partially off of Wicca. My moral codes are much the same, but the one big difference I have from my family is that even if someone doesn't ask for help directly, I will still offer it. But only if they seem like they really need the help and are willing to help themselves change the situation they've found themselves in.

I hope you find your happiness. Share below what are some things that make you feel better. :)

Window

Don't let the stormy darkness pull you down - Pete's Dragon

When I started grade 7, I felt as though I was a stranger crashing a party in mid run.

The school I'd left in grade 5 was the one I was returning to, so I wasn't completely the new kid. I still knew a couple of people from my first sentence at the school, and so I thought it wouldn't be too awkward. I tried to keep my reasons for the departure and return quiet; it wasn't something anyone wanted advertised.

I didn't want to be the girl that was too weak to last through a bad teacher's class. I didn't want to be the psychotic classmate or the one that no one could tolerate. I was embarrassed that I wasn't strong enough, smart enough. Wicked enough.

I kept on a mask, pretended that the witch walking those ten year old children down the hall wasn't there. But that pretense also kept me from being a normal kid, from being an interesting one that people were drawn to positively. It was my fear; the bane of my existence was a manifestation of my past catching up with me. And I couldn't help it. Not because I didn't want to, but rather because I was afraid of what would happen if I let my mask fall away.

We, my schoolmates and the teachers and I, became coinciding entities that never knew each another, never got to experience another, though knew of the other's existence.

My fear was a glass ceiling, and one I formed. People always said that victims of bullying and abuse are faultless, that there is nothing they're doing to deserve it. I don't believe that. Not that the victims are bad people, but it might be the way they talk, the sound of their voice, the things they find interesting; it could be anything. We are not faultless as victims, but that doesn't mean we should change what our fault is or be anything but who we are. It takes two for a fight, for a conflict. The victim, possibly unbeknownst why, is one of those two.

Aspirations

If you've actually read my #DearMe and my creator's introduction page, then this won't be a surprise for you. My two greatest aspirations are to be a teacher and a novelist/writer. Why?
Novelist:

I was a nasty little girl that hated to read when I was five all the way until I was about twelve. The two books that got me back into reading were Twilight and Looking for Alaska. They were both recommended to me by a girl, whose relations to me would take longer to type than I'd want to in this post, and I had to say I liked Looking for Alaska far better. From there, I read mostly fantasy, delving into Terry Pratchett novels and world where anything could and often did happen. 

But why was I so attracted to fantasy? 

My elementary school ranged from kindergarten to grade 8, and high school was grades 9-12. I had a rocky start to this school, being that my entry was in grade 7, not at birth or a young age like the rest of the students. Because I was an outsider I didn't know my classmates well... and I had a home room teacher with a strange vendetta against my heritage and therefore me. I felt alone. Even with the people I thought and considered as friends, everything was so distant and I was always running to catch up. 

In books, especially fantasy books, every word I read brought back drops of life. This was like replenishing a bone dry bucket with misty rain. It can work, but it can take an eternity. But it's still better to do it this way than to not do it at all.

When I read about the characters and their worlds, I could imagine walking straight into the book, traveling to a different dimension and such. I was given the opportunity to escape the world that was killing me. And for this reason, I love books, and I always will. I love to read them, and I found that in writing them, the same feelings were produced. I could leave the world that was given to me and make one I liked better, one suited for me.

I was ashamed when I first wrote a scene onto paper that I crumpled it up and threw it into the bottom of my knapsack. My mom had taken to rummaging through my bag to see if I had homework and happened across it. She pressed me, asking if it was in fact homework, and I told her it was nothing and threw it into the recycling. 

She must have picked that paper out and kept it, because when I got to the end of grade 8, when I was about to graduate, I found it, flattened as well as it could be, on my desk with a chocolate on top. 

I want to be a novelist so I can write stories that help other girls and boys that are going through the same things I was going through at that age. I want to be another option for escape and I want to be an inspiration, to tell them that there's hope and that there's always a way out.

Teacher:

They always teach children that they can go to their educators, the teachers, for help and solace. If you were having trouble at home, you were supposed to go to the teacher. If you were being bullied, you went. So why did I not?

I can count exactly how many wretched teachers I've had between grades 2 and 8. To also note, for part of grade 5 and all of grade 6 I was home schooled. The number is 7, though some of those teachers are worse than others. The notably worst three teachers were my grades 4, 5, and 8 teachers. Worst of all of them is my 5th grade teacher - the reason I was pulled out of classes and home schooled for two years. 

Five out of seven of these bad teachers could just be classified as not nice people (I'm refraining from swear words here). My 5th grade teacher was able to, within two months, build me my own personal purgatory. I remember three specific occurrences that caused my anxiety to be overwhelming. Once was when I'd lost a handout and asked for another copy, another was when my project broke when we were supposed to test them, and the third was when I was told by my mom to not hand in an assignment out of family and personal ethics and beliefs. This woman, for each of these occurrences, pulled me into the hallway and yelled out "Who's the teacher? WHO'S THE BOSS?!". I remember those words so clearly, as she shook her finger at my face, her bleached blonde curly hair looking more and more like a ferocious lion about to attack. 

I became so scared that my brother would see me crying at recess, trying to collect myself. He'd tell me to go and call home, to get my mom to come in. When I refused, he did it for me; he was always the one to look out for me. 

By the time I was allowed to be home schooled, I was having nightmares that this woman was out to kill me, that I was a fly she was trying to swat. For the first month of my home schooling, I refused to leave my bedroom during the normal school hours, afraid my mom would take me back to that wretched woman.

As an added note, I am partially German. The assignment my parents told me to not hand in was an essay on why Nazi Germany was bad. I do not have a problem with saying that what happened during the was was wrong. But the Nazis were not the only ones at fault, and I was always raised that way. The woman also always kept saying "the Germans" instead of "the Nazis", making it sound as though the blood flowing through my veins made me as much a killer as Hitler himself. 

In grade 8, I had a teacher similar to grade 5, only I was also being cyber and mentally/emotionally bullied by my grademates. This was when Facebook was becoming popular. My mom was still at my side, but by this time, because I was so bothersome, my dad had left me, saying that it was me that was the problem and not the teachers.

I want to be a teacher so that I can be there for the kids. I was driven to my wits end, possibly even past that, and I don't want for another kid to suffer the way I did if I can help it. 

I want to help others. That's all. To save them from the same hell I endured.