Modus operandi

I sometimes wonder why it's so hard to change the way you operate when you know so well what underlies it and what is wrong with it. But I guess changing the way you are is just difficult no matter how well you understand it. It isn't like I should be surprised about the way that I feel at the moment - it is so not surprising and so predictable that I should really feel stupid for kind of being surprised.

I don't even know where to begin, so this may be unorganized. Let's begin with this - I am unhappy. (And since the last time I said that, did I achieve "happiness?" Did I lose it? Did I mistake happiness for unhappiness? Did I have it, and I didn't know it? Is happiness just plain not what I thought it was?). I don't like the way I feel at the moment - and what I really want is some relief, except I don't know how to get it - I mean I know how to get it. I have to wait for it. But it isn't coming quick enough.

Also note that I am a goal oriented person. I like to have goals, I like to be always in the process of trying to accomplish something or get something or achieve something. I like to have a plan and be on a path and be executing on it. The destination is happiness - that undefined thing that I can't describe and also can't locate. And although a friend will tell me that happiness is not a destination. I will insist that, nevertheless, I will be happy when I get there. When I get there.

I have no goals today. I have nothing tangible to get and happiness is just too, well, illusory. I always defined happiness in terms of the tangible things by which someone may measure it (someone, not me necessarily, just someone) - career success, financial stability, relationship, family, house, travel, etc. In my mind I have always associated happiness with achieving certain things. You get X and you get to be happy.

And here is the problem. In my previous life (which means before I came into AA), I was able to operate under the illusion that something would fix it. It turns out, I liked that illusion. I liked it a lot. It kept me going. It was my motivation, it drove me, it pushed me to try ever harder to get everything I ever wanted. It is the reason I am so successful in my career and financially (though admittedly I do not have so-called success in other areas). Anxiety, coupled with a quest for the happiness that would always elude me is the reason I am right where I am, sitting right here writing this.

I operated under the illusion that whatever it was at the moment that I was trying to get was going to be the thing that would make it all okay and would make me happy. I'll be happy when, and I'll be happy if. It might have been going to law school, getting a job, getting a different job, making more money, a new car, new furniture, a new boyfriend, a new location, X amount of money in my bank account, paying off a student loan. In case you were wondering, none of these things worked.

I have known, well, since the very first AA meeting that I ever went to what had gone so horribly wrong in my quest. And even though I know that the key to my happiness and unhappiness lies on the inside - knowing that almost makes it harder. Having a goal doesn't even help me because I know that whatever it is that I am trying to get isn't going to make a damn bit of difference. It's just not going to make any difference, so why bother at all.

And I can't figure out just what exactly I need to change on the inside. Or maybe I am just tired of trying.

What is the point of all of this? I am unhappy. I am slipping into the blah again and I don't feel like stopping myself. How long has it been? I can't remember. It isn't a steep decline this time and it isn't coming out of no where. It is slow and it makes sense and I am just riding the elevator down. Where is it coming from and why is it so predictable? I am coming off of a really busy time at work. I am coming down off the stress of it. My job is such that it allows me to check out. I can get so busy at work that I don't even really have a sense of what is going on with me. I don't feel anything - it numbs me out.

And then suddenly, I hit a lull, I get a breather, I get a moment to stop and check-in with myself. The feelings of uneasiness and anxiety rush over me, the unhappiness, the sadness, the things I didn't feel because I was too busy to notice them. I forget for a moment that I wasn't happy. I trick myself I guess. And this is where we find ourselves. It happens every time I get busy at work and then things slow down. It's cyclical. Work is cyclical and my mood and my awareness of my unhappiness cycle with it. And I sit here wondering what will fix it, knowing that it isn't external, or material or tangible even.