Winters….Darkness or Beauty?

I know it has been awhile since I have written due to the fact of the winter blues. It’s real. I am writing this sitting on my couch and looking outside. My thought process goes two ways here. One: White stuff, cold, dark, stay at home, sleep, be depressed. Two: white stuff, beautiful, nature, the wonders of precipitation and its many forms, feeling alive, comfort. I have chosen option number one more than two lately. Yeah, I go workout and feel way better, which I recommend you to go do if you are in a funk. Even my animals stow away and sleep all day. This is a tough position to be in. I was contemplating the other day that I needed to get back on my meds. Then I was like, “no way,” I have gotten this far. No turning back to the past habits. You have to stay occupied with something during this time.

I don’t know if I am right or wrong about this topic, but do having kids, help? I mean you have sports or other activities which get you out of bed so you can go support them and after the activity, you fill a sense of fulfillment. A sense of joy. I can’t really relate to this matter. I can only imagine. Why didn’t I have kids? My number one reason was because I thought the world was going to shit. People are negative, outside influencers we see on TV are awful. TV and social media is not reality! People only post the happy moments or the moments where they need comfort which is someone passing away usually. I got wrapped up in this and decided to not get on the baby train. As I look back, I was having the outside world decide this for me. I wasn’t in tune with myself. I could have taught my kids to look at the world differently, made it more positive. However, this positivity didn’t find me till last year. I started questioning life habits, my choices, how I perceived situations. My glass was half empty. I didn’t see the brightness in nature, in conversations, in friends. I was always searching for the negative to make myself feel better. Where did that get me? On meds, in counseling, not married, no kids, same job, old habits.

Now, as I am thinking about this there are reasons these life choices became reality. I purposefully wanted to be different. I wanted to prove to myself I could still be happy without the perfect marriage, the kids, the average life. Well, how is it going for you, Brooke? Well, I still have my bad days, but I know I am not stuck at my job if I don’t want to be. Marriage is not for me because I still don’t know where I will be in the future. I don’t know where life will take me. And as for the kid situation, I wasn’t supposed to have them because I know in my mind, I would have not set them up for success. I do have more good days than I do bad, and that is a step in the right direction in my story. Only you can decide your happiness and sometimes I don’t. I still get stuck, and that is ok. I do have friendly reminders at work though to keep me positive. I had one peer say to me, “Ummm, where is the Brooke that has been happy lately? She is not here today.” Self check in happened after this comment.

I was finding all the reasons to not be happy that day. The wearing of masks, which don’t work by the way was my number one setback. They didn’t work with the Spanish Flu, so what is different about this time? Do your research. Here is the RN coming out in me. Your gut lining is full of bacteria and when you expel into a mask you wear for 12 hours a day…you do the math. So on the bright side of masks, I have seen some amazing eye colors that I wouldn’t have noticed before. However, I am over the mask thing. I want to see faces, I want to see facial expressions, I want to see the spirit in people when they laugh. I will although have to retrain my… What the F expression, when I see crazy things when the masks do come off while at work or out in the world.

I was having a couple of cocktails the other day and a question popped up in my head so I asked my bartender/friend. Why do people like scary movies? His answer, “because people want to feel alive.” We have to be scared to feel alive? I replied, “What about being at peace?” “Nah, too boring.” he replied. Think about this. We need to be scared to feel the feels.? When I am in tune and at peace, I feel safe, I feel alive, comfort, beauty, and nature is beautiful. Peace brings joy, love, and happiness. What is greater than that?