Happiness
It’s no secret to those who know me well that I suffer from anxiety and fear of rejection. This is why I have been single for 8 months. Although, this is not my longest bout with singleness. The longest I’ve been single was 3 years before I dated my most recent ex-boyfriend.
Of course, right now we’re in the middle of a global health crisis. That is not making anything easier. It’s a lonely time for a lot of people. But, I have realized there is one thing that has the universal ability to cheer us up and give us renewed perspective: music.
Two of my favorite artists have done that for me in the past month: Taylor Swift and Ariana Grande. The one who has been on repeat the past 24 hours is Ms. Swift. In particular, the namesake for this post “Happiness”.
“There’ll be happiness after you. But there was happiness because of you. Both of these things can be true. There is happiness past the blood and bruise. Past the curses and cries. Beyond the terror in the nightfall, haunted by the look in my eyes that would’ve loved you for a lifetime. Leave it all behind and there is happiness.”
I’ve had time to reflect on things that were not right in my last relationship; the things that caused me pain like his lack of communication when we were apart, his selfishness, the passionless midnight kiss on New Year’s Eve, paying the bulk of expenses for a Vegas trip that was his idea so he could go see his friends and breaking up with me on Halloween because I wanted a photo of us together ( I looked fucking hot, just ask the guys who hit on me the minute he left my side). But then I think about the good times we had like thinking we were going to die off-roading to Vegas in his Honda Civic, watching him push around a little Indian girl at the ice skating rink because her parents couldn’t skate, slow dancing in the living room to the jazz music in the movie Harlem Nights, the first time we made love on the fourth of July to name a few.
I know there will be happiness after all of the pain of him breaking my heart at the beginning of this quarantine. I also know that I had happy times with him. Both of those things can absolutely be true. Just because we aren’t together now, doesn’t mean everything was bad. I’ve learned what I will and what I won’t accept next time around. However, there won’t be happiness if I have the negative on repeat in my head like I do this song on Apple Music.
So now, I’ll leave it all behind and there will be happiness.
Photo by Luke Stackpoole on Unsplash
“No winter lasts forever; no spring skips its turn.”
Hal Borland