The Happiness Project

A life under renovation.

The Happiness Project has begun.

Happiness

A New Beginning

Last night my boyfriend gave me a nickname. He called me 'caterpillar'. I'm always wanting to start anew. Always wanting to become the 'butterfly'. Eager to slip out of my cocoon and fly one day.

And i'm gonna say good riddance to the bitterness of yesterday, and start anew. Start fresh. Without bitterness of my own heart and mind, and of others. With colours, liveliness, cheerfulness, and new dreams and realities.

Happiness

I'm Them

I mean seriously!

 

Now i understand the significance of the quote "People say i've changed but the truth is i just grew up!"

 

Seriously.

 

Now, because they cannot handle me being and acting like an adult, they think i'm being arrogant.

 

I'm just tired of living in this house. I wake up every morning and i find at least three things that start my day on a bad note. I don't need to put up with these things just because they're family. I don't need to put up with these things especially because they are family because families are supposed to make you happy and good about yourself. Not hate you. Not tell me that i won't be able to handle things. Not tell me that i am not capable of doing things. Not tell me that they're always right and i'm always wrong and immature just because i'm 23. Seriously.

 

One is a patriarch who is emotional about it. So it seems like he is hurt and crying every time the girls in the house do something radical. Don't have any more words for him.

 

The other is a talker. But her talks won't inspire or cheer you up, they would make you wonder what on earth are you doing in this house. She would compare you with all your friends and people of your age and then put it in your face about how immature you are for your age. And the next moment, she would hate it when you do something mature because now she has lost her control over you. Now because she starts to realize that you can handle things on your own, her position is threatened. She is also a back-biter, and she doesn't choose her words carefully.

 

The third one is selfish. Sometimes she is kind but those are like the leap year. Most of the times, she is selfish. She would want you to make sacrifices for her and when you do that, she would appreciate you for being a nice person. But the moment you do something nice for yourself, she will make you feel guilty about not doing that nice thing for her. So for instance, if you get a job for yourself, she will ask you- "why couldn't you look for a job for me? Don't you know even i need a job? You found one for yourself, not for me." She will want you to go on a guilt trip. She will use your things- your tops, tunics, shoes, and even your skinniest jeans even when you two are of different sizes. And when you buy  something your size, she would ask you why you couldn't buy a size larger so that we both could use it. And you try your best to not hurt her, but then you manage to tell her that you don't like sharing clothes all the time, and she comes with 'We're sisters!'

 

I hate living this way where i cannot have my own jeans to myself or my own shoes. Or when she uses my clothes, she makes a mess of my closet. She would ask me to be my own person with my own thoughts and then she would feed me her thoughts and opinions. And love me when i have a fight with our parents because she hates them just as they hate her.

 

I hate living this way where my dad will ask me about why i took the tiniest amount of money i could from my bank account even if i took out thirty dollars! He being the 'man' in the family thinks that he has the right and control over everybody's finances. He thinks i don't even know how to open a bank account or handle all the paperwork. He thinks nobody in the family knows. Surely there would have been a time when he would not have known that but now he does. You learn by doing things not by never doing them.

 

And i don't even want to start talking about my mother and what she does.

 

The thing is i love my family and they love me. And it would break their heart and my heart if i choose to move out. Because i've never really lived away from my family. Probably a few weeks but then that was just temporary, and for some work. But i've never thought of leaving them for how sad i feel in this house. Out of 365 days in a year, my family is in emotional crisis for about 340 days a year. That's pathetic.

 

And it might make me sound selfish but i don't want to live like this. I might even sound so cheap that i don't like sharing clothes with my own sister. But we're not poor. We can afford to buy things for us. She has more clothes than i do. We have separate closets now. Yet every morning i get this feeling that i don't have complete ownership on my own clothes, on my closet, on my shoes. I want to have 100 % ownership on my things. What is so wrong about it. Why should i be made to feel guilty to desire something like that. Why should i be portrayed as an evil little sister to have that desire. I cannot even put a single book on that table that she has made her own. She will immediately throw it into my rack and "Don't put your things on here." I don't like her opening my closet as and when she wishes to. 

 

And then i hate my mom for backbitching about my sister. I dislike certain things about my sister but i'm gonna watch my mother backbitch about her for things she personally hates in her. Just because she has a fight with my sister and i have a fight with my sister does not mean my mother and i should necessarily be on the same team. And my dad, he is sometimes just pathetic. He curses. He curses using words like 'die'. He doesn't know how evil he sounds by saying those words. Words don't mean anything in this house. Words don't mean anything to my parents and that is why they can say whatever they feel like. Words only mean to them when they are hurt with them. And my sister, for whom words mean so much doesn't care about her actions. She is pathetic at kindness and good actions at home.

 

I want to leave to a happy place. I want them to know that i would find the strength to live on my own. But i don't just want to move out, i want to get married and move out. I don't want to live alone. I want to live in a happy home where people would not stop talking to each other for months just because they do not agree on the same things. I cannot live without love, care and kindness. I cannot live with love, care and kindness only half full.

 

They don't know how sad they make me. And when KJ and i fight, i feel sadder. I feel like life will never change. Because i cannot live alone. I want somebody in my life and if KJ and i fight, then how would i leave my family and go to him. He is my strength in this emotional turmoil. If i don't have my family and if i don't have KJ, what would i have to look forward to.

 

All this time i had thought that i could not live away from my family; that i could not hurt them and move out; that i would always live with my family and take care of them; that i'm very attached to them that even a slightest pull would break me into pieces. But then, i cannot be the person i wish to be if i don't let them go. I cannot be happy if i hold onto their bitterness. I cannot be peaceful if i let their attitudes and words into my daily life.

 

Since my childhood i have always been my pleasing self, and thought that was my authentic self. But it isn't because it is an adaptive self that adapts itself to my parents' praises and wishes. I always tried my best to be the good daughter because i thought that was the way my parents would not be hurt; that they would not be hurt if they have a daughter who takes their orders as wisdom, and is pleasing because she listens to them and has manners. So as a kid, i did everything they asked me to. I brushed my teeth every evening, i finished my glass of milk, i tried very hard at getting good marks, i behaved nicely in front of their friends, i went to bed early, i did not watch movies as a kid. I became a little-girl-image of their own selves. I became the person who wants to gain good name. I became the person who did not want to fight even when i was right. I became the person whose self esteem depended on what others thought of me, and for that reason i wanted to get an applause from people. I chased people's acceptance, people calling me 'a good girl'. I became the girl who should be soft-spoken. I became that person who should be nicer to outsiders than to own family members because a good name is what matters. I became compliant and never defiant. I became a mini version of my parents. I became them. Until this very minute, i did not know this.

 

I learnt very good manners from my parents. But i am also choking in the weaknesses that they had passed onto me. But now i've grown up. I'm not that little girl anymore.

 

I want to be an adult. And i understand the pain of leaving family behind, but i don't find anything wrong in wishing to start your own life as an adult.

 

 

Sound Check. One Two. One Two. One Two.

You need to check your volume when you talk to your boyfriend over the phone. I'm not interested in hearing the sex noises that you make.

I apologized. Now What?

I apologized for my words and tone. I don't expect you to forgive me but then there is nothing more i can do. Don't give me all this 'I am your big sister' bullshit. The conversation has nothing to do with you being the elder sister.

 

I apologized. But if you expect me to act like a puppy wagging its tail and running behind you, then you are not gonna get that.

 

I have been sincere in my apology. If i had to bring up all the mean things you had said to me, you would curse me for remembering all your mean words and never getting over them. But i forgave you for those words. And all i want is you to forgive me for this comment that i made upon what you did to someone. I made that comment because in that moment i forgot the reason why you did it. But i remembered it later on and that is why i apologized.

 

I am really sorry to make you feel so bad. But do not question my ethics or values. Do not call me a hypocrite.

Got a job!

Yay Me!

 

So i went there at this news website's office, met these two amazing, almost senior-citizen sort of people. (Rumour has it that they are dating. They seem perfect for each other.) Anyway, so i went there, talked to them, got myself a job! Yay!

 

And they are gonna pay me what i had been looking forward to. And i am gonna work for three days a week. Amazing. Just what i had been looking forward to. I cannot believe the universe is on my side.

Thank you!

This is the Day!

So today at 4 in the evening, i am gonna either get a job and feel like i am on the top of the world or else i am gonna be sad.

 

I really really need this job. I don't remember needing a job so badly ever. And just so know, this is a part-time job that i had applied for yet i am desperate for it.  Well, not desperate in a perversive way but in a good, excited, beggining a new life sort of way.

 

I want to have a test of financial independence.