My life is lonely. I’ve never been someone to see it as so, or see it as difficult or unhappy at all until other people tell me about it. Maybe I see life as “la vie en rose” - through rose-coloured glasses. I’ve been naive for most of my life, friendless for the rest of it, and uncommonly positive for all of it because even if things rub the wrong way there’s still always cause to be happy. Why wouldn’t there be, right? Just blot out the bad. Shuffle away from it and find some sunlight. Is that strength or just ignorance? Sometimes I think it’s strength, but then I realize how ignorant or me it is to think that and see the opposite. Maybe as much as I love colours I see things in black and white, life in black and white. It’s either all darkness or all daylight and for some reason it won’t unstick form that. Maybe I’m seeing through an old vintage tv. that would certainly make more sense - or at least that would explain the constant static.

I can never finish a notebook. Dunno whether that means I don’t want to in some corner of my mind or maybe I just don’t have enough to say. Maybe there’s too much to say and therefore I have to keep starting new ones so I don’t run out of room. Whenever something bad happens, I’ll fester about it and then put it completely out of sight. Are those lights supposed to be on?

Sometimes I miss childhood. I miss seeing everything as new and exciting, and miss cheering for every single firework that goes off. There’s no screaming when the bell goes at the end of recess. You don’t think of doing a lemonade stand or chalk drawings. There’s no longer that same endlessness of imagination. It all stops. Maybe it’s just me. I need my body going so my brain can wake up a bit.

People don’t smile anymore. They shout and curse and smoke and spit and sit and find their own clouds to sit under. There’s no simple happiness. Everyone knows too much about how the earth is slowly dying and our food is killing us, the animals are running out of time and the oil is running into the sea where our water is getting too much estrogen and the rights of people are being taken away and everything just ends in sadness. No kid wants to know that. Maybe that’s why we all just can’t be kids. Because if kids can’t know that and everyone were still kids and no one was there to keep the burden we might be even worse off. Things are changing. People are changing from when there were first people on this world because all of our records tell us how extraordinary they all were, but maybe they were more similar to us than we’ll ever know because people didn’t want to write about the things that aren’t extraordinary.

Everyone seems to need to be extraordinary these days. There’s no room for somebody who’s just simply happy. According to everyone you have to be complicatedly happy with four kids, married to a second husband, while juggling a business you created from the ground up and charity work on the side; or maybe famously happy with millions of dollars in the bank from all of the blockbuster movies you starred in, awards from the scientific discoveries you made, or maybe even the youtube video you made that went viral; or miserably happy where no matter what your job is you can’t stop saying good grief and there’s never enough money to go out for lunch or go on a trip or get that new jacket you were eyeing in the department store new arrivals rack, yet still manage to have a good time of it with all the beer you drink too much of and the spouse you love to hate and argue with and cheat on.

But no, you can be all those things but a person can’t be simply happy. They can’t live in an apartment with a pet that might shed too much and an oven that’s so hot it’s hard to get the cookies quite perfect, but it’s still cozy and colourful and not too cluttered. They can’t have a job that pays enough to still be able to go to the movies on a wednesday night that doesn’t make them also want to get hit by a taxi on their way over. They can’t just be happy loving someone and be loved in return without being married and not have people frown at them and just understand they don’t need a shiny band to make it any more special than it already is. Things just can’t be simple anymore. That’s just not right anymore. Makes me wonder if it ever was.

Getting a cut is no longer just a bit of blood - it’s a hospital-filled, bandage-wrapped, alcohol-drenched, worrisome ordeal that causes stress over potential infection rather than just that funny sad thing that happened, please kiss it better mommy. Travel is no longer just jump in the car and leave the country without police and questions and suspicion and long lines involved. Friends just can’t be friends anymore.

Things change. People change. And people grow up and away and apart and then people aren’t people anymore let alone friends. They’re metal. They can’t show compassion or have fun or do anything just for the hell of it. There’s no time. They’re expected to work and get married and have children and stay married and anything outside of that is looked at as a pity. But people can’t be compassionate either. Too much said is too much and a danger to yourself but not enough is dishonesty and how is anyone supposed to trust you? Caution is the principal. And above anything, you can’t cry. Crying is weak and laughable and only means you’re looking for pity. People don’t like breaking down to the needs of others, it makes them weak too. People have to be the best!

Life is about competition - be the first and the best to win the race. And as much as it takes, it’s all wonderful. Horribly, frustratingly, life-threateningly wonderful. The worst things are the best things, and if you’re lucky you might be fortunate enough to live a little in your life. Might fall in love. Might make real friends. Might figure out what it is that you’re truly good at and what makes you the happiest. Create something profound or see something life changing or have something touch your lifetime that makes you weep with joy. I want to have all of that, but really I want simplicity. I want to be that simply happy person who’s in love with somebody else and just enjoys.

My life is lonely. I don’t have many friends and the people I do know don’t quite fit. There are the occasional ones who are absolutely wonderful, but that’s usually changed pretty quick. Maybe I change pretty quick. People I work with think I’m stupid and a nuisance and a ditz who wears funny clothes. I blot out the bad things and shuffle along from one thing to the next hoping something will stick, and it usually does for a couple of days before the adhesive comes off in the shower. I love nostalgia probably a lot more than it’s worth and want to fill my life with as much of it as I possibly can. I’m tougher than people realize and have got skin made of iron yet somehow I lug it all around and make it work, it’s flexible you see.

Things are good. Not the way I’ve hoped they would be, but god is it good. I’m happy. That’s all I need for now, and all I’ll ever need.