My brothers girlfriend took her own life.

But everyone keeps on living.

She was never a person I would’ve assumed would take her own life. But how often do we see it coming? Someone is miserable but an expert at hiding it. Or we aren’t listening hard enough.

It made me think. How many happy women do I know? And I can’t name one.

I can’t.

I feel like Betty Draper in Mad Men. At least the first seasons. I have everything but still nothing. I should be happy but I’m not.

My sister is drowning in an angry relationship that is causing her to be extremely overweight and extremely snappy at people.

My mother is drinking too much to drown whatever daemons are plaguing her. She loves her husband but she’s torn between the different countries he lives in and never has time to just sit down and relax.

My friends are getting divorced, or becoming a family wife, resentfully taking care of everything, or unable to find their path. One is extremely unhappy with their work but unsatisfied with going back to school to finish her degree.

I don’t know happy women. But I though she was happy. Even if she wasn’t extremely happy, she was strong, beautiful and so smart. I never saw it coming. And I can read people. Obviously I saw she was sad but I underestimated how sad and now I feel so phony. I thought I was a good friend, and I just got it proven that I’m not. I can’t be there for those who I hold close. I can’t even be there for myself.

Fear is controlling and paralysing.

Our fears dictate our choices and motions. Every second step is decided before hand by our own ulterior motives, all controlled by fear.

I quit drinking for a month because I feared I was an alcoholic. When it wasn’t that hard to quit, I began drinking again. It is a reward, for having the energy to stay alive. It sounds negative and dangerous but I’m not suicidal, no matter how that sentence is construed. I learned a decade ago that I would never end my life deliberately, it does however not imply that I’m happy enough to stay alive.

I have someone who loves me that I love so much it hurts. I sometimes love myself, sometimes hate myself.

Probably bipolar, I sometimes just don’t have the energy to be all that I can be. Other days I think it will suffice if I’d work as a waitress for the rest of my life, happy just being me (like Phoebe in Friends), but I know it wont. I am too smart, with too much to offer and just not enough energy to give. Anything.

We are our own worse enemies and its when we look beyond our own view of ourselves, look through other peoples eyes, that we shine. I’m trying my hardest to just shine.

Work was killing me. I could literally feel it draining all the life out of me. Standing there smiling at all the costumers, who were acting like idiots, all the while the boss was fucking me up by not being any support, or at all reachable.

I could take it when I was only working weekends. Sure I was tired working every weekend and then going to school on weekdays but the exhaustion never kept me from being polite to customers while taking their shit, and it never really made me resent my boss. It all grew gradually from June until just the other day, when I quit.

I just can’t take it any more, feeling like I get screwed from all sides. So I quit to get some summer vacation instead, and it’s like the heaviest weight was lifted from my shoulders, the biggest sigh could escape my mouth and I could finally sleep at nights.

I’m free and I feel like I escaped a horrible punishment. It’s glorious not to be back there working my ass off for someone who never sees or acknowledges it. Working like a maniac for people who never appreciate it. Busting my ass off only to get bitched at. I don’t need it and I left it behind. Freedom!