TO SMILE AGAIN

It seems as though I have forgotten how to smile.  To show any signs of enjoying life in expressions upon my face have disappeared.  When this happened it is truly hard to say, but over the past week or so friends have pointed it out to me.  To blame it on depression, stress or anything else could be an easy way out, but it seems to be deeper than just these things.

STUCK

My life has been like my car when the transmission wen tout.  There was the appearance that all was fine, but in reality it was not.  The body of the car looked okay--starting to show some wear from aging, but nothing too horrible.  Upon starting it, the engine turned over right away and sounded as it should, yet, it would not go.  Placing the gear shift into any position and it acted the same as being in neutral.

No Movement.

This has been my life for so long that I do not remember anything different. I looked fine and would get up and go through the motions of life, but try to engage in things and I became immobile.  Experiencing life--new adventures or friendships could not happen with my personal transmission broken.  The daily pressures of horrible finances, feelings of worthlessness and shame, and no close relationships aided in this problem of being stuck.

In all honesty, these things have been known to me for quite some time, but I kept pushing the truth away.  Dealing with these kinds of things would require me to face them and then make some kind of changes, and being stuck made me comfortable in my spot no matter how miserable I was.   Yet, even in being stuck I had random moments of showing true enjoyment and pleasure and it was caught in a photograph just recently. This picture was posted on social media and a good friend in another state told me it was good to see me smile. She went on to tell me that too many of my pictures had been so serious and the such that it was a good change.  Talk about an eye opener!  I guess I was not hiding things as well as I had hoped.  It felt as though I had the wind knocked right out of me and was a completely wake up cal that things needed to change.  

So over the past week I have been thinking and trying to come up with a new way to live....

1. Try something new and often as possible.
2. To truly experience people and things.
3. To go beyond my comfort zone.
4. Push past the expectations others have of me.
5. To see and follow dreams.
6. To accept failures as a part of the journey.
7. To accept pain as just a moment in life-not a game stopper.
8. To truly laugh and smile.
9. To be authentic--whatever that might mean.

I don't know how I am going to do this, but I know if I continue being stuck it will give way to a reason to drink again, if nothing more than just boredom.

As a way of reminding me, there was another picture posted of me enjoying a simple thing in life and another told me it was good to see me smile, because they have been worried about me.