All I Want For Christmas Is You
When Mariah Carey wrote this song, she probably had a particular someone in mind... or maybe she didn't. Maybe she wrote a Christmas love song just to entertain people or even just to relate to people who really do wish a special someone could be theirs. Maybe it was just to make money and she didn't intend for it to be as big of a hit as it is now. Regardless, there is a "you" in the story of this song, and for each listener, a different someone (sometimes) comes to mind. Sticking with the Christmas/winter-y theme, here, that someone most likely makes the listener feel like what drinking a big cup of hot cocoa ---- especially one with lots of mini marshmallows ---- feels like: warm and happy. I can imagine this is a great feeling to have.
I saw this quote recently by a poet named r.h. Sin that says, "find someone who feels like christmas morning," and it just made me think about how cool, lovely, amazing, etc it would be to have that ---- to have someone that makes me feel warm and happy and giddy and carefree and grateful and so many other feelings, to have someone that makes me so excited to wake up and look forward to the day. I want that. I really do; I sometimes think it would be really funny to answer my mom's annual "What do you want for Christmas?" question with "A boyfriend. Please :)"
In all seriousness, though, each year she asks me this ---- usually a month to a month and a half before Christmas --- my mind usually goes blank. As I've gotten older, I have grown to care less and less about material things. Yes, sure, I'm guilty of thinking that this dress is SO CUTE or that I really really want those pair of earrings, but still. A huge part of me hates things. I don't need more disposable things in my life; I don't need ---- nor do I want ---- more clothes or shoes or whatever. I feel guilty for having as many clothes in my closet as I do, even though I've accumulated a small chunk of them through hand-me-downs. I often just want to give it all away. I want to try to sell my old iPods and other "stuff" that I don't need and only keep what is absolutely necessary. I always get into this rut of What's the point of having all this stuff? I. don't. need. it.
This year, when the dreaded "What do you want for Christmas?" question came, my mind once again went blank, because what I really wanted --- and want ---- couldn't be wrapped up and put under a tree. In fact, to refer back to Mariah Carey's song, the "you" in my story isn't a guy; "there is really just one thing I need," and that thing is happiness. I want it for my own (more than anyone could ever know), meaning that I want to find my own happiness, because I am so SO frustrated with not having it.
I know that probably sounds dramatic, and most people will probably ask the question: "Well what do you mean you're not happy? You're still smiling and laughing and having good times in your life, so you're obviously happy. You can't deny that you aren't." People saying this wouldn't be wrong. I am grateful to have people and moments in my life that make me genuinely smile and laugh; I am even more grateful that in this past year, my life has been filled with more "good times" than I ever could have possibly imagined when I decided to transfer home and leave behind all my friends and that these good times have reminded me that I don't need to pretend to smile, that my smiles don't have to be fake. I won't deny that these people and these moments DO make me happy. However, it is still very possible to not have happiness --- complete happiness ---- despite having moments and people that make me happy, because I can't just always rely on other people and other things to make me happy; I need to be able to create, find, and have it for myself.
Maybe my naiveness is once again coming out, here; maybe having and feeling complete happiness isn't actually possible and that I just need to be okay with only "being happy" sometimes. Is complete happiness even real? Why can't it be? Why can't complete happiness be possible? Why can't my happiness last? Why does the happiness I gain from the amazing people in my life have to fade minutes after I'm no longer with them? Why are the moments that make me happy so short? Why can't they last longer? Why?
I know, I know. Nothing lasts forever, and like I said, I know I'm just so incredibly naive and my inner child just so desperately wants to believe in a forever of people and places and things... but I just want to feel happiness ----- forever happiness; I just want to feel like Christmas morning --- yes, obviously it would be wonderful to find a person who feels like Christmas morning, but right now, I just want to feel it all on my own.
Once again, I won't deny that everything this Christmas has made me so happy; I finally was able to come up with two things I wanted as gifts: a jewelry box and a black rain jacket from TWLOHA that said "Love is the movement" on the back of it. These gifts, along with the surprise suitcase and (extremely cute) boots, made me genuinely smile ---- I am so thankful to my parents for giving them to me. But beyond forever happiness, for Christmas this year, I just wish my depression and anxiety could have been taken away.
I have been dealing with these demons for what feels like a lifetime now. They have ruined so many parts of my life, and I am SO frustrated, angry, and sad all the time. They are destroying me ---- and saying that out loud makes me scared and also makes me feel like I'm being too dramatic, but I also know that it's the truth: depression and anxiety truly are destroying me, and they are the reason that I am broken. They are the reason that for so long now, I have felt like I'm not living my life; I'm just surviving.
When I was still a waitress, there were days when I would first get to work and I couldn't bring myself to fake a smile quite yet. A co-worker would say, "Hey, Maggie! How are you doing?" and I would bluntly reply, "Surviving." They would laugh and I would crack a smile as if it were a joke, but in the back of my mind I would be screaming, "I. can't. do. this." It was hard. Faking smiles and pretending to be okay when I felt very far from okay was so so difficult. It still is difficult, and there are many days where I can't even bring myself to smile ---- even if it's just a small one. There is a quote I have saved on my phone (okay, confession: 99% of the pictures saved in my camera roll are of quotes) that perfectly describes how I feel: "I don't cry every day anymore, but I still have days where I can't get myself to smile at my parents and my world feels like it might implode."
It might sound dramatic, but I. am not. dramatic ---- it's how I feel. My world always feels like it's imploding because of what's going on in my messed up mind. Depression feels like drowning, like I can't breathe, and everyone around me is just splashing around, swimming, and having a good time. Anxiety feels like fire, like I'm burning and it hurts and I just want to stop, drop, and roll away from people, places, and things constantly. But... how does it make sense that fire and water mix? They normally don't, but in this case, they do; they feed off of each other, and most times, my anxiety makes my depression worse. Or vise versa. I wish I understood why.
I always just thought that I had depression and anxiety, simply labeled terms that aren't actually simple at all; however, fairly recently, I learned that my depression is actually (correctly and clinically) called Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) and that my anxiety is called Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD). One of my psychiatrists once told me that my GAD also has sort of a "little brother" though ---- Severe Social Anxiety Disorder (SAD). Writing all of this for the public to read is really scary (and my inner voice is currently screaming, "WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING?!") because it means letting people know that the mask I always have on isn't my real one, and most people would probably never believe or think that I have these things wrong with me. In high school, no one knew I was depressed because I wasn't "visibly displaying symptoms," meaning that there was no "evidence" to support my feelings; I was still excelling in cross country and academics. I was still smiling and laughing.
In hindsight, I now know that this is what is called "high functioning depression," and I still have this high functioning depression. When I was a hostess/waitress, I would smile and be courteous, friendly, and professional to customers. I had to be this way. I couldn't allow my depression to show. The same went for school ---- I could not allow my depression to destroy my GPA. It was hard to always be high functioning, though; I couldn't and didn't want to keep doing it, because fighting against something that no one could even see was exhausting.
At the first university I attended, my depression was ultimately the reason I gave up cross country/track. It took away my motivation to try hard and my desire to do anything except sleep. As I made my way through my time at that university, my depression got worse and sucked away everything I once thought I had. The summer before my last cross country season, instead of training and doing workouts/long runs, I spent a lot of my time sleeping ---- sleeping to escape the world and my feelings. My (social) anxiety made going to class and the grocery store terrifying. Going to parties was even more terrifying, and I would (stupidly) use alcohol as a way to try to calm me down. I still tried my best to never let my depression take away my motivation for school, though. Like I mentioned, being "good at" school was a huge part of my identity. It made me who I was/am.
Nonetheless, during my last semester at that university, I cracked. I was so tired of fighting, and instead of studying for the tests in my hardest class (it was a Spanish Cultures and Societies class, because at the time, Spanish Language and Literature was my minor) that semester, I slept. The first half of the semester, I failed two tests and one paper, something I had never in my life done before; "failing" was not something I did. I was in MAJOR danger of failing the class, and my GPA would have been ruined... but part of me didn't care. I just didn't want to do it anymore --- I didn't want to keep trying.
It was around October that I decided that I couldn't stay at the university, and it was decided that after the semester was over, I would transfer home. After a meeting with my professor, though, I snapped out of it; I worked as hard as my depression would allow for the remainder of the semester and used going home for good as my motivation. Miraculously, I was able to get a B in the class ---- evidence that hard work really does pay off --- and my GPA remained what I wanted it to be. However, a similar occurrence happened at the university I transferred to; I once again almost allowed my depression to ruin my GPA.
Truthfully, I still am so tired of fighting ---- fighting against this MDD and GAD and SAD. They are powerful forces, tsunamis and hurricanes and tornadoes that crash over me and rip through my life, obliterating my motivation and desire and happiness and smiles. I wish this Christmas, they could have been taken away --- I wish Santa could and would take them away. My inner child wish it were possible to write a short, mini letter that says:
"Dear Santa,
Please make them go away. Give me a magical pill or something I can take that will be like an eraser, a pill that can erase everything that's wrong with me.
Always,
Maggie"
Yesterday, I wore cool socks (I. LOVE. COOL. SOCKS!) that had Santa on them and they said, "Believe." I want to believe that these forces can one day go away forever. I want to believe that one day, I will permanently feel like Christmas morning makes me feel: happy and giddy and light and carefree. I want to believe that permanence can be real, but I also know that it isn't and never will be possible to ALWAYS feel happy; it isn't and never will be possible to have permanent and complete happiness, and that is mostly because I think that these forces ---- this MDD and GAD and SAD --- are always going to be a part of my life. It is also because unfortunately, sadness and pain and brokenness are always going to exist in the world; they are never going to go away. However, I want to (and have to) believe that one day, I can have better control of these forces, my demons.
xoxo,
Mag
