Maybe We Don’t All Get To Be Happy
By Kendra Syrdal
I consider myself a lot of things, but happy is honestly not near the top of the list.
Quick, hardworking, methodical, clever, determined, content. All of those are adjectives I would probably place next to myself if asked. But happy? No. Frankly, I’m not even exactly sure what that looks like or would feel like or means.
Of course I’m speaking in an exaggerated manner. Obviously I know happy people and I know what it looks like when someone is a bubbly, smiley, effervescent person. I know my co-worker who snapchats how excited she is about the bright red cherry tomatoes in her salad is a happy person. I know my best-friend with his loving husband and bloodhound and Barbie dream house is a happy person. I know the barista below my apartment who gets to work with his wife and always asks me how “the writing is going” is a happy person.
But me? I don’t really know what that feels like. My base level of existing is a 4.7 out of 10 on the happiness scale. Get me to a 7 and I’m on fire with joy and don’t really know what to do with myself or my hands. I honestly don’t think I’ve crossed an 8 since I saw an live orca calf in the wild.
I think I used to be a happy person. Maybe like…five years ago I was. I was living in a quintessential Manic Pixie Dream Girl apartment…
