Something occurred to me today that had not occurred to me in years :
I am relatively happy.
I am an opinionated female so obviously I will have my moments of frustration. I have a history of abuse and other negative things that have happened in my life, so I will probably always have my triggers, to some degree. But I have finally reached a point where I am around people who deserve my company, I am taking the time to do the things I love such as writing, hanging out with friends who are actually decent human beings that I can completely be myself around, and I am working for an organization whose purpose is to do good things rather than line our boss’s pockets. (A nonprofit that accomplishes things that warm my heart every single day.)
I feel like I spent a lot of time trying to fight against people who are just frankly, human waste receptacles. I had this idea of something that made me happy and this stubborn determination to refuse to let anyone push me away from it because frankly, I deserve happiness just as much as anyone else does and when people go out of their way to keep you from happiness, its pretty damned offensive. Although I will always stand up for myself and I will always fight for my right to happiness, one valuable thing I have learned is that if people don’t accept you – fuck them. There’s just no “nice” way to say it. Fuck them, they are not worth ANYTHING in relevance to me. (I want to reiterate that last part, because it does not mean they are worthless human beings, but they obviously have nothing positive to bring to MY life specifically so they don’t need to be a part of it.) I am a human being like everyone else. I am imperfect. I have hurt people. I have made mistakes. But the one thing I will always hold on to, and the one thing I will always judge others for is that I will never hurt someone ON PURPOSE. I will never try and destroy someones happiness. I know that it becomes a tempting defense mechanism, and I have seen people I care about and used to trust and consider friends do and/or say horrible, hurtful things to me just because they know what my buttons are and its all intentional, and I have not done that in a very, very long time. I have held back and focused on the positive and it has turned out to be a good choice.
Basically I feel like the moment I turned my back on the negativity someone (my ex-roommate) tried to throw at me was the moment karma started bringing good things into my life. The moment she went into attack-mode and I made the choice to say, you know what? I am better than this, I will not do what you are doing, I will not engage with you and I literally just walked away – that was the moment my life improved, almost instantaneously.
I love my friends. I love that I reached out to people from my past and said hey, I miss you, I am sorry we lost touch but I would like to be a part of your life again, and they said YES without hesitation, without judgement, and without even asking me to explain why I disappeared in the first place. (There is no reason, I just got caught up with a basic group of extremely volatile people and lost touch with others.) I love that those are people that have known me for a long time, seen me through some difficult times in my life and accept me for exactly who I am, flaws and all, and would never and have never done hurtful things to me. I love the new friends I have been making, I love how OPEN and KIND people can be when they don’t even know you, I had almost forgotten that there are people out there like that. I felt immersed in cliques and arrogance selfishness talking behind peoples backs and extreme intrusiveness and so many other negative personality qualities that I had never experienced in such a pack-animal setting before, and it all REALLY got me down on humanity and I think its hilarious that people are amused at how grateful I am over the smallest acts of kindness. One of my co-workers go the giggle-fits with me today because he went on vacation and brought me a snow globe and I was fangirling like crazy and he was like DUDE IT WAS FIVE BUCKS IS NO A BIG DEAL but it was to me because when I asked him to pick me up a snow globe I had been ENTIRELY JOKING and I never imagined he would actually do such a thing. Then we were talking, casually, and he made some REALLY nice comments about the work I had been doing and basically told me that he would always have my back here at this job and I almost cried. I suppose the good thing about being treated so horribly for so long is that when you are treated decently, you NEVER take it for granted.
And in turn, I feel so inspired lately. I want to do all these nice projects for others and really make them feel special and appreciated and put smiles on peoples faces and sweaters on peoples hearts and really just treat others how I want to be treated because I don’t just want to appreciate the positivity around me but I want to be a PART of it. I want to embrace the good things people are bringing into my life, and I want to be the person who brings good things into someone else’s life. I know we are bringing good into the lives of animals, every day a few of our rescues get adopted to great families and find their forever homes and thats what I get to be a part of. Almost every day that I work, I sniffle as I say goodbye to a pup I have cuddled that is going home, and although I know I will miss each one, I know that without the organization I work for, they would most likely be dead. I can’t tell you what that means to me.
I will quit my sap-tastic bantering now, I just wanted to share my happiness because its a feeling I don’t ever wan to let go of. Here it is, the life I wanted, the life I know I fit into. Helping animals, writing, living in the city and among good people. Theres nothing else I can ask for.
Kell Frillman - Author 