Happy?

You ever get the idea that you're not living your life?
I mean, really living your life?
Get up, go to work, go to school, cook dinner, kiss your significant other, turn on the radio in your car and sing along like it's the best thing and you tell yourself that you're happy.
Why?
Because you're not in Somalia or homeless or anything else to give you the indication that you're not happy.
But.
But you're not.
The alarm rings to single the onset of a very important day, the things you do that matter and contribute and make you fell fulfilled.
Does it though?

This is me.
I get up every day, sometimes sleeping longer than I should.
I promise more of myself from my studies than I can follow through with,
I live in an apartment with my boyfriend.
I go to the gym and text/call my friends to see how they are and when the moments come, as they always do, when I am sitting quietly alone, I tell myself I'm happy.
Why?
Because I'm not in Somalia or homeless and there's no other indication that I'm not happy.

But there is....

You ever just watch people, really watch them, and see how noisy and fleeting and on the surface it all can be?
I clean my apartment and do the laundry and as I fold his clothes I think how I care about him and it's nice to search for the stupid missing socks and clean the kitchen and do all this stuff because I'm happy.
I move forward because that's the direction you're supposed to go.
I change the things I don't think I need to because I'm happy.
I talk about things that aren't what is really bothering me because I can't keep bothering my friends with these worries that play on repeat.
Because I'm happy.

At 8:42 on Sunday night I sat on the floor in front of the coffee table with my clay project I was finishing up with paint, a Netflix movie on and every light in the place on because I decided to stop what I was doing to paint.
I thought about all the stuff that creeps up when the world is quieter and it's just you there.
While I don't know for sure what  else I would be doing, I do know that my friend is right:
Life is too short to be so miserable. Especially at so young of an age.
I've been wasting time worrying if I'm good enough, interesting or smart enough and painfully comparing myself to everyone else.
But I'm happy.

No. I'm not happy.
I just want that on record.
I am not happy.

I am in a mediocre to shitty relationship that is handy for him and leaves me questioning daily if I'm worthy enough or not and if he truly cares or not.
I don't want to work so much while I'm in graduate school.
I can't see myself as a professional in training as part of my identity yet.
I don't like keeping up on the cleaning and the laundry.
I always have these grand ideas for a writing or painting/ceramics/drawing ideas and my skill doesn't align with that idea.
I want to just pick up and travel and now that I have the opportunity to go to Guatemala for eight weeks this summer, I stupidly question whether or not I should because maybe if I go home with him this summer like he talked about, while he goes to Japan for three weeks telling me he doesn't want me to go with, maybe he'll decide he loves me for real.
I doubt my professional skills at times.
I get upset when my brownies don't turn out just so.
I hate some of the things people do but I don't say anything because I'm pretending to be happy.
Void of feeling too much and playing cool just in case.

I'm sick of fucking walking around like nothing anyone does bothers me and I'm okay with it, that I'll just try a little harder or care a little less or turn a blind eye to things.
That's wrong!
That's all wrong and not how things should be!
I'm 24 in 4 days.
It can't be another year of just continuing on the cycle until eventually the people I put more effort into than they do me eventually decide it's not worth it.

Maybe it's almost the breakthrough point.
Like maybe this is the climax when I finally decide to live for myself and not other people.
Or maybe it's just some post that comes from left field that doesn't matter.
It matters to me though, getting all of it out of my head, hoping other people think about this stuff too.
We're all putting ourselves aside or putting ourselves too far ahead and it's not right.
There's probably not any wisdom in this but I think it matters because we've all got to live with ourselves forever, that's what she said to me.
When I'm sitting alone on my living room floor painting and thinking, in that moment that's it.
There's no show, no impressing to be done or sucking up or being the most aloof.
I'm just afraid that it's too easy for all of us as people to get so distanced from who we are trying to chase a collective idea of happy, excusing what our own definitions are, being hurt or hurting to have this idea, and then when we're alone at night we don't even know who we are.
I don't.
I have a general idea but I don't always feel confident enough to go with it.

So, I don't know, just a thought.
Are you happy, truly, when you're sitting alone at home and can you be that person all the time?
If so, you got there somehow and I think it's important to know.