Who Does Your Happiness Depend On?

It is 10th of June 2017, 11:41 am as I’m sat on my bed, with my laptop on my thighs. The duvet’s covering my feet so I’m not too cold even though the window’s open; I’m usually cold, although I like feeling the soft pre-afternoon breeze that comes in through the open window.

I can hear sounds of the outside, in the distance cars driving on the main road just a few hundred meters away. I can hear birds singing, talking or whatever it is that they do. Every so often distant voices come to me from downstairs, although because of how the sound carries itself through space, bumping into things along the way, the voices sound more like mumbles, from which I can make out most of the words.

Obviously, at this point, the upcoming future holiday season is as far away from me as the past one is that has already happened and feels nearly forgotten. Since then I have gone shopping with my mum about 80 times, slept for about 1120 hours, eaten approximately 475 meals, although none of them has made me want to sit at the table for so long and want to try as many things as I can without thinking about the consequences of the calories, as every Christmas dinner has. In the history of all of the Christmases that I can remember, every single one felt complete, even when it actually hasn’t been.

I don’t think that my long-gone father has ever been sober for any of them, or that my loud Yorkshire Terrier has spoken a word in the commonly known human language, as the Christmas Eve legend claims; but each one has left me hopeful for the upcoming year. That one night ending the current and marking the beginning of the new year, always makes me want to finally make sure that I finish all of my assignments at least 2 days before the due date, makes me want to plan exactly what I will eat every single day to lose all of that unwanted weight to become the person I always wanted to be but has yet never seen the glimpse of in my mirror reflection.

I grew up in the Christian family, society, although somewhere in-between reaching the stage of puberty and developing my own voice, I noticed a small, but significant flaw in our religious culture. No one was there when I had to sleep in my winter coat because my mum couldn’t afford to pay for gas to warm our home. I felt completely alone when my dad was throwing punches at my mum, and righteously stealing my pocket money to buy himself another beer, ripping the wedding promises and vows apart.

The last paragraph might seem quite bitter, although in no way I’m claiming that God does not exist. Simply as it is, no one can prove to me that He is real, but no one can also prove that He isn’t. In this moment I can either choose to believe or stick to what I can experience and know as a fact.

Christmas to me just feels like the time of the year when usually the same things happen. I feel like with how much personally I have happening in my life, with how things and facts change day by day, Christmas will always feel like that one constant, that’ll always make me feel the same. Wherever I live, Christmas will make that place feel more like home, so the more Christmases spent there, the better.

It is 10th of June, 1:21 pm as I’m sat on my bed, with my laptop placed on my crossed legs. The duvet’s off of my feet, and the cold air puts my mind at ease letting me come to the conclusion, that even though every single Christmas is actually different, it is me who makes that yearly pre-Christmas trip to the shop feel more special and close to my heart, than any other, ordinary, weekly one does. Everything depends on the way I perceive it, and as cliché as it sounds, my happiness depends on me.