A Letter to Happiness
Hey, Happiness,
Yes, you.
Where were you?
Where were you when I was all alone, crying on the bathroom floor, wishing the world would end before my eyes opened again?
Where were you when Colleen was high on the living room couch, swallowing pills and poison until her hands turned to stone?
Where were you when I caught Ben cheating? When all he seemed to know how to say was, “You’re a bitch”, and “I’m leaving”.
Where were you when Molly went to rehab for the second time in a year? Frightening and useless as a wild cur.
Where were you when I sold my priceless innocence for pennies, knowing full well I’d become nothing I set out to be?
Where were you when I kicked Tag’s bathroom door down—when he hid a seven-inch blade to draw fresh blood from his own arm?
Where were you on that wretched, bloody, hell-bent bathroom floor?
These ignorant folks are telling me to “choose to be happy”. But the reality is, the choice has never been mine to make.
How can I be happy when all I’ve ever been is unwanted?
How can I accept the smiles on the faces of these ignorant folks, when every time I look at them I’m flooded with jealousy and rage?
How can I CHOOSE to be happy when I’d rather CHOOSE not to be here at all?
How can these ignorant folks, sitting calmly in their blind bubble of naivety, tell ME how to feel about MY story?
I’ll be frank with you: Judging by the way they conduct themselves, these ignorant folks seem like they were never actually saved from anything… they were just born lucky.
Dealt an unfairly advantageous hand.
And now they stand on their pedestals, acting holier than thou, looking down on me as something to pity.
Why?
Does my reality make them uncomfortable?
Do my scars scare them?
Here’s the truth, Happiness:
I did choose you.
I do choose you.
I choose you every morning despite the storm that meets me in my dreams.
I fight to choose you with every breath that I take.
But I choose you, not because I forget the past. Or because these ignorant folks want to silence my truth for the sake of their sanity.
I choose you because Jesus Christ—my Savior—taught me how to fight like an unrelenting warrior.
For goodness.
For second chances.
For joy.
For peace.
He taught me how to fight in the presence of these scars.
You see, Happiness, my journey to you was not passive.
It wasn’t a one-time, simple choice like these folks make it seem.
It was an ugly, devastating, tantalizing, ferocious war that, were it not for freedom and forgiveness from my Father in heaven, I had no chance of ever winning.
So please, Happiness—I beg of you—compel these ignorant folks to stop telling me that my journey to you involves forgetting. Maybe that’s true for the lucky ones like them, but it ain’t for me. Or anyone who’s like me.
My truth is simple, and I think this goes for most:
Happiness comes when we dive headfirst into the shadows of our past, knowing for certain we’re about to get hurt all over again.
But we do it with fire in our eyes.
With strength in our heart.
And as we cling to the hand of Jesus and fight, we make peace with our scars in the knowledge that we aren’t alone this time.
Sincerely,
