Happiness; another life lesson I needed to teach myself about

Happiness. What is happiness? I always wish that I knew the TRUE meaning of happiness. Apparently our country wishes that they did too. I have heard it said that even thought we are the most “well off” country in the world, we are the most depressed. Even though we have all of these opportunities and wonderful things, we are still the most depressed. But this isn’t going to be about “be grateful for what you have”. This is about ways to find happiness, or at least how I have found it.

My boyfriend lives an hour and a half away. That’s not too far for two seventeen year olds with their licenses, but neither of us have one. Needless to say, we have been dating since June, and barley see each other, at the most, once a month, but I don’t think that I have ever been happier in my life. I remember being asked one day if I could choose for him to live closer if I would. I sat and thought about it for a while and eventually answered “no”. And I think the person who asked the question was quite taken aback. But there is reason for this. I am happy with what we have, I love every minute that we have because this way I feel like we are getting to KNOW each other more because we don’t really have a choice to do anything else. I remember once he said to me “we have to use this time to get to know each other and grow in love and not be distracted by the physical”. And he was so right, because believe me, he is a very good looking man. But this isn’t about us. In fact I don’t really feel that comfortable sharing even that much because we like our privacy, and don’t really believe in other people being “in” our relationship besides us and Him. But you need that much information to really understand what I am going to talk about next.

Put it this way, I like Nathanael a lot. And that is an understatement, because even I do not completely understand how much I do. So being apart for so long, and he having a job and going to school (I’m homeschooled), and my “after school” activities, and us just being so BUSY all the time, can really take a toll on a seventeen year old girl. And I remember when we first actually were in a relationship; it was after we got home from working all summer together at camp, and seeing each other for a good 4 or 5 hours a day I didn’t really know how to deal with it. But I got through it because we saw each other a lot those first two months. But after October we haven’t seen much of each other. And I started to become really depressed and didn’t really know how to control it. And you know, I think he was starting to get a little annoyed with me. One night we had a conversation and he was like “I know you are strong, you can get through this, show me that you can.” And so I did, or so I thought. It was only until a little while ago that I realized that I was “happy” all the time, I was becoming “stronger”, but it was artificial happy. A happy that wouldn’t let anybody, including myself, see that on the inside I still wasn’t that happy. I was lonely, and sad. Because I thought that if I was sad, that meant I wasn’t being strong. Last night I finally figured it out. It’s OKAY to be sad, but what I was doing wasn’t okay. I was letting it control everything that I did. When I first told my mom we were going to stay together even though we were far apart she told me this; “That is an awfully mature thing to do Shapleigh, but I think you need to get your emotions in check first, but do what you want”. I never understood it until now. No matter what you are experiencing, it is okay to feel that emotion, but you can’t let it control your life. I have to say that I am actually genuinely happy now that I know what I am doing. I am allowed to feel emotion, and that is really great. It’s okay to feel lonely and sad sometimes, but when I let them affect the way that I am living, that is going to make me a person I don’t want to be, and I am sure people don’t want to be around.

Now that I have concluded this I have realized that this is another blog really aimed at myself, not really others. I believe that this is just another way that I am learning to “Stay Strong”. That sometimes I need to help myself grow, and realize things in order to help others learn and grow also.