bad at being happy

I have been in a state of perpetual crisis since I was about 9 years old.  Some of the crises were things we would all agree are crisis-like (untimely death of a parent, for example), others were specific to an adolescent (and then prolonged emotional adolescence) point of view.  Some came to, at, and through me without an invitation and others I completely brought upon myself.

The result: I get bored easily.  When there's nothing wrong I don't know what to do with myself.  I am uncomfortable with feeling comfortable.  I don't know how to do it.

My 2013 vision board.
Basically just says "keep being awesome.
keep letting awesome happen to you."

Just this past weekend I was sitting in my beloved's lap on the floor and sobbing.  Nothing had happened.  Nothing was looming on the horizon.  I was simply full to bursting with emotion because there's nothing wrong with my life and I don't know how to cope with that.

I tried to fill the open space by listing all of the things that are wrong with me:

• I wait too long at 4-way stops, it confuses people, and then I get mad at them for being confused
• I don't clean, but I want things to appear neat 
• I hog the bed
• I have stinky feet
• I eat things that have been dropped on the floor
• I have a stretch mark at the bottom of my droopy, post-pregnancy belly that is at least an inch in width (width!)
• There was more... it's not that important...

I even tried confessing to one of my greatest sins against humanity:

• once when I was baking something I needed baking soda and didn't have any in the cabinet so I took a teaspoon from the box in the fridge instead (you know, the one that sits in there absorbing odors for a while).

Don't worry current loved ones, it was years ago...  I have higher standards now.

As the words came out of my mouth I struggled to hold back giggles; sometimes I couldn't manage to.  She waited until I was finished (I probably went on for 20 minutes about how "awful" I am) and presented me with a "guess what?  I still love you."  And I knew it was true, which was awesome.  Even awesomer is that I didn't love myself any less for any of these things either.  They all sounded pretty ridiculous.

I don't know how to just be happy and content.  I only know how to struggle and cope.  I know how to keep my head down and plow through.  I don't know how to take it all in when there doesn't seem to be much of anything going on to take in.  I don't have much experience letting it be.  I've built a reputation on fixing and planning and coordinating life into a perfect outcome.

For 21 years I've been toiling away and hoping to get to someplace or some time when I would have what I wanted to be happy...  Well, I made it.  Now what?

In the past I would have made up something to be upset about.  I still see myself doing this, but when I see it as it happens it takes the wind out of its sails.  I hear a lot of folks self-sabotage at this stage.  I don't think I do that.  I think I just whine.  A lot.  And when I'm tired of whining I work from home so I can eat lunch three different times or I obsess about things like whether I should sell my iPad 2 on eBay and buy myself an iPad mini instead (I definitely should...)

Last night I had a dream that I was making a list of all of the things that were right about my life.  It lasted all 7 hours.

I'm starting to feel guilty about complaining about this.  Now that's a feeling I know what to do with!