Late Night Journal Entry: Happiness...?

Today has been the best day I've had in months.

It was so simple.

Cory and I rode the Front Runner down to Provo, ate lunch, rode it back to SLC and then walked around City Creek. I exchanged my glasses at Lens Crafters and then we came home.

Thats it :)

I felt more alive than I have felt in months. I felt as if I could be myself for a change. I was able to talk openly about what ever was on my mind. I was able to say yes and no with confidence. That no one was judging me or looking down on me for wanting or not wanting certain things in my life, including myself. That I didn't have to pretend or put on a show! That I was okay.

Last night I came to a decision about myself. I was able to talke to my grandparents yesterday for about and hour and a half...and they were able to put a lot of things in perspective for me..They gave me a very large paradigm shift.
And after much self reflection, I realized that I needed to be more kind to those that are the closest to me.
I have a really, really bad habit of impatience. And with that anxiety, depression and anger which leads me to do and say some pretty hurtful things.

I have come to realize that these habits are very real and I have allowed them to become apart of me. But just as I have allowed them in, I can CHOOSE to let them go.

I do not want them plaguing my life anymore. However I don't view the way to go about it is by saying "I need to stop" or "I need to cut these things out". Rather, I feel if I can start practicing kindness, patience, forgiveness and love...The hurt, pain, anger and hatred will naturally find an exit out of my life.

And I feel the BEST way to start is to find happiness.
I need to be happy!!
When you're happy it's SO much easier to be kind and loving and understanding.

SO! I have decided today, February 26th 2013 is my DAY ONE of My Journey to Happiness.

I decided that I am going to start doing WHAT EVER it takes to find happiness. I am so sick of hating myself...of crying myself to sleep..of being afraid!! The fear in my life has become crippling. I am so sick of not having friends because I am so afraid of being rejected and abandoned...
I am 20 years old..... and I deserve to start enjoying my life. I deserve to wake up with a smile on my face and to go to bed at night content with who I am and what I am doing!

I don't really know exactly what I'm going to do, but I know I need a plan.

I am someone that needs structure. I thrive off it. I need a plan. I'm a list maker.

GET ORGANIZED
I recently moved in with my boyfriend, Cory, and space is veeeerrrrrrry limited...to say the least. But I know that getting organized and settled will put me in a better position to make this journey possible.

MAKE A HAPPINESS WALL/JOURNAL
I need to start figuring out what exactly makes me happy. What makes me feel satisfied. What makes me feel most pretty,  makes me laugh, makes me come alive. I need pictures and activities that I can look at and do everyday for myself. And on top of that I feel as though I need to record and keep track of my progress and my set backs.

I feel for the first time in my life I have to ability to become exactly who I want to be... I for the first time can define who Jessica Hildebrandt truly is. I have finally realized that I have people that love me and want to see me succeed. I have no more excuses left. I can not change the cards I have been dealt in life..but I can control what I do with them. I can not allow my past and hurt to keep me trapped.... I have to live for myself.

I want happiness...I want to love... to forgive....to move on.

I want freedom.

Late Night Journal Entry: Thoughts From a Restless Mind

Life caught in pictures looks so wonderful…so happy…

I wish life was as pleasant looking as the pictures I take…still…quiet…always smiles…no tears to be shed..no cry to cry..everything is so much more colorful..so much more pretty…there is nothing that is ugly or wrong..only the moments that are worth remembering..

If there is a God, why must life come with so much heart ache?? And if there isn't a God, why must we carry around the heart ache in the first place?? Why feel anything at all?? If this is it, why bother with ill feelings. Life begins and then it end…If this is it, then why live for anyone or anything other than yourself?? Why does charity make us happy? Why do we have emotions?? WHY? they make no sense…Why should we have mercy at all?? Wouldn't logic and reason make more sense?? But we do have emotions. We do. And sometimes they are ever more clear and make so much more sense than logic and reason could ever make. Why?

Why do we love?? 

Why?

Whats the point?? 

If the world is so bad and so hurtful, why do we have such delicate emotions that are so easily caused to go out of control?? Would not natural selection or evolution rid us of such things?? "They" say we are the most evolved of the animal kingdom because we have cognitive reasoning, we have the ability to think on a higher level…And with this the ability to feel on a higher level as well. But I disagree…the ability to feel deeper is nothing more than a defect. It sets us back. All it does is hurt us. Hurts me...

 If only I could rid myself of feeling. 

Ahhh…

Tto be numb…Such a state I only dream about. 

Of course there are ways to numb one's self. "self medication". Drugs, alcohol, sex. Addiction. But those also lead to the inability to move forward as a human. Our emotions keep us back and numbing them keeps us even further back. I wish so hard that tomorrow I could wake up and feel nothing. Not pain nor sorrow nor shame. Nothing.

And I have never known happiness so that won't be missed. I just want to be able to live…And I won't if everyday is a battle…a war zone in my mind….in my heart. 

My heart is constantly breaking. Over and over and over again…everything anyone does rebreaks my heart..And then I spend the rest of the day trying my best to repair it..only to have it crushed again and again and again…

I want love. I do. But I believe it's only because I hope just a little love would cancel out a little of the complete and utter self hatred I feel towards myself. Even now as I'm writing this..as Cory lays next to me peacefully asleep. All I can think of is how much I want this to end…I can see beauty all around me.. breath it in…appreciate it..feel it as it swells in my chest,..as it swirls around me…and yet all it does is break my heart a little bit more…I see beauty and it makes me smile…but not a happy smile, no…it makes me want to cry..and I don't know why…maybe I'm just a loon. Maybe I'm permanently messed up. Maybe something went dreadfully wrong in the womb, or while I was growing up…or maybe I was simply made this way and there is no escaping or changing it.

I'm so lost…

so confused…

what's worse? 

being love and poor?

Or being wealthy and miserable??

Instinctly or rather what our culture has taught us, is that love is everything. Love is the cure all. The prize we are all have been fighting for. But I have come to realize that love cures nothing. In fact, it can make your life a living hell.  It's a poison. when we love we open ourselves up to be hurt. And hurt we WILL be. There's no escaping it. It's there clear as a bell, blue as day. It's there weaving it's thorny branches around your heart. 

There.

I've figured it out.

Love is a thorny rose bush. 

There may be some niceties about it. Not being alone. Someone that listens. Is there when you cry. and looks at you with those ever forgiving eyes that seems to bare down to the depths of your soul. But life is not as nice as the pictures I take..There are more memories. Memories I wish I could forget. Yelling, name calling, abandonment, hurt, lust, blood, knives, trains, aunts, snow, the cold…the ever so bitter cold of winter combined with the unimaginable cold of abandonment… complete and utter abandonment. By my family…by God…By everyone that was supposed to love me..gone. In blink of an eye. 

I often replay the events leading up to my parents leaving in my head. Over and over again like a broke record. All I had to do was the dishes…that's all my mom asked me to do..instead I wanted to talk to Chris Solesbee…he was the only one that understood it seemed. And my stomach hurt…it seemed to always hurt. And not the kind of pain that was from eating to much or nothing at all…this was a deep, unforgiving pain that never left.that made me sleep when it was day and cry through the night..the paint that made me only dream of a day that I would laugh and mean it…to lay down int he summer grass and have nothing to worry about…no care in the world. to just lay there with closed eyes and a silly smile on my face…

 I laid down and tried my best to fall asleep….when my mom came down and told me to get upstairs and do the dishes..that everyone was helping. I told her to shut up and that I hated her. 

Then I shut the door and locked it. Slid down the back of it and asked God why i was so horrible..why did I just yell at her?? I didn't want to…I didn't mean it….

I fdid my best to fall back to sleep…waking up to an eerie cold…I was still in my jeans and bra….Why had no one waked me?? It had to be late…and we were leaving to my Grandparents…

I looked at my mom's phone that I had taken without her knowing…there was a text from chris telling me he was on his way to Lake powell…I sat on the ground and texted him back…

Then the knock came….

that knock…then the push, then the "Jessica, open the door"  

I hate this memory more than almost any that I have...