One of the oddest things I find myself having to come to terms with over the last few months is being happy. I honestly didn’t realise how miserable I’d been till I was properly happy. I guess you learn to live with it and project an image of happiness that gets you by.
The next thing I didn’t realise was how often any previous happiness had been sort of hijacked. It was only after a couple of months of waiting for the metaphorical kick in the teeth to knock me back down into my place that it dawned on me how much I expected it, like that’s how things were meant to be.
With this sort of thing, I’m often my own worse enemy, feeling that I don’t necessarily deserve good things to happen to me. Weirdly the whole lockdown thing had helped with that. Not only did I tackle a lot of my issues while I had the chance not to be forced to interact with the outside world, but I also made a conscious effort not to let those negative influences control things anymore.
We refer to it as channelling my inner Oddball, a reference to Donald Sutherland’s character in the movie Kelly’s Heroes.
Becoming a “we” was another factor. We may joke about “#TeamCookieFace” but we are a team, tackling the things that come along together as a mutual support system.
While our main mantra may be “it is what it is” that’s not a defeatist attitude on our part. Stuff happens, you deal with it the best you can and then you just get on with it. We are very much in charge of our own happiness and we chose not to get distracted by too many side-quests along the way.
