Those trusty Facebook Memories hit me upside the head again today.
These were really good memories, though; it wasn’t anything that should’ve been upsetting.
It was a recollection, rather, of how I was feeling during that good time.
Sure, I was smiling in the pictures and saying all the right words in the post, but I recalled with razor-sharp accuracy how I truly felt: numb.
Times were happy, but I couldn’t really feel it.
I knew then, and still know now, what caused the numbness. It was because after so many years of stress and strife in Bret’s and my life together, I knew that any happiness was fleeting.
It never lasted.
Much of the time, it was over as quickly as it began. Needless to say, I began to become wary of “happiness.”
This one specific memory was after we left Texas and moved to my home state of Oregon.
Bret absolutely loved the town we serendipitously landed in.
We were active in our community and attended local events regularly.
I wanted to feel happy and be relieved that the “bad times” were certainly behind us, but I just could not.
My teenage beauty pageant training came in handy with the on-cue smiles. I could look happy. But I could not truly feel it.
The memory caused me to realize that I have come a long way in being able to feel happiness again, yet there’s still a long way to go.
I am still apprehensive about getting excited for something – a trip, an event, etc., because I had become so accustomed to disappointment.
Of course, I can feel disappointment (that’s honestly funny–of all the things to be able to feel) and of course sadness, but the numbness helps with that too. Sadness doesn’t cut like it has in the past. I guess that’s a benefit of this lingering feeling – or lack of feeling, rather.
And I can still find humor in things. Sometimes it’s humor in all the wrong things, but at least I can still laugh.
Don’t get me wrong, I am thrilled I can feel sparks of happiness again. But the fact that I really couldn’t until just last year is wild. He’d been gone seven years at that point, and only then did regular-person feelings start to come back online for me.
It honestly makes a lot of sense. This explains why I did stupid things and sometimes engaged in risky behavior – I just wanted to FEEL. Anything to just feel SOMETHING. I caught myself making a dumb call just a few weeks ago, all in the name of feeling. Again.
Still.
I guess it’s kind of like any other wound or injury; sometimes the nerves get damaged, and they may never regenerate. You may just be stuck with a weird numb spot forever. Or maybe, with time, the feeling starts to come back slowly.
I may never be able to feel complete happiness again–I’m not sure what that would even be like. But I am so thankful I can feel it once more.
A little happiness is better than no happiness at all.
Believe me, I know.
Some of that aforementioned dark humor – Bret & I at a concert in Eugene, OR, July 2017.
The “fake smile” post in question. I remember thinking, “What’s wrong with me? Everything is PERFECT, and yet, here I am…”
AI-generated image of what numbness would look like if it were a tangible thing and not just a feeling.
