Free Lemonade

Chapter 1 - Happiness  (April 11, 2023)

Hi, my name is Happiness, Happiness is me.

I have realized that holding onto things I love only leads to my own loss and a loss of myself. Therefore, I am learning to let go and turn my misery into something positive.

I went downstairs to the old deck by the lake, the deck was old but still beautiful.  I looked around this familiar and peaceful place, this was perfect for what I was about to do.

I checked my surroundings to make sure I was alone, and everything looked sound: the lake, the trees, the reflections, the shinny sunny spots on the leaves... I put a "check" mentally.   I was ready to do my first "completion exercise" to connect with my shadows and relive dark moments to let go and be free from those particular shadows.

Tic tuc tic tuc tic... Dasha came down the first set of stairs, the second set of stairs, and shot across my space.  "Oh Dasha."  I really couldn't be mad because seeing him here was such a relieve.  Only at the lake could he do this, he's calm here, no shutdowns, doors wide open, no leash, no running away, no fuss.  "Okay... you can stay."   I decided to keep him with me and started my exercise.

I closed my eyes.  I opened them again, seeing the jade-colored lake in front of me.  It was not hard to be quiet, so I decided to keep my eyes open.  I prepared myself, mentally transported back to junior high, first day of school where I broke my toe and became "famous" throughout the school.

I was at the playground full of kids.  I fell off the monkey bar, one foot on top of the other and broke my little toe.  The top part of right little toe flipped upward, bruised.  The pain was nothing because I remembered none of it.  I felt embarrassed, the emergency, the crowd, the noise, kids laughing, kids gasping, people talking, whispering indistinctively.... everywhere.

I asked myself to keep being there and see what else could come to my mind, anything new I could remember.

At this point, my son started calling Dasha's name from upstairs.  "Dasha...Dasha..."  Dasha is a male dog, he is my special guy.  His name means "big dumb" in Chinese.  My son kept calling, "Dasha come!"

Name, name... I kept thinking and tried to stay focused on the scene in my head.  All of a sudden, I remembered that it was also the same period of time my mother had changed my name.  There was a lot of introducing of myself, explaining my name which name was the right name, etc. etc.  It was a lot more attention than I wanted.  This piece of history never hit me like this before, but I suddenly realized that it must have been a very traumatic experience at that age, when my mother changed my name from Jing to Happiness.  I had to endure all that introducing because of my accident on the first day of school, everyone knew me, and not just the first day.  I had a clutch, I was probably very special in the following days and months, I needed to explain about my name over and over.

That was probably the first time I was super embarrassed, at that special age, for "public humiliation." And... it was exhausting.  Ever since that moment, I protected myself with shinny "outfits," being nice, being smart, getting good in school so people praised me than made fun of me, being successful and making a lot of friends, to get rid of my "bad name," to keep my "good name."

Tears ran down, flooded my face unstoppably.  I wept for a good minute or two, like a baby.

This was the shadow that formed in my life at that moment.  From that moment on, I was determined to protect my good name, to be liked and to be good.  I learned what would invite positive feedback from people.  I learned it very quickly and did just that, relentlessly.  But what I kept as my shadow, or what I had suppressed inside was that feeling of being judged, that I was bad, I was naughty, I was an embarrassment, and I was not lovable.  This hidden image of myself versus the shiny me I created on the outside, had a disconnect. This disconnect accompanied me on an exhausting journey of justifying myself, constantly.  This disconnection ran my life, till today.

I remembered more mantras that I created for myself: "I am fine," "I am happy," "oh yea, my parents got divorced but they both love me so much, you know."  I filled my life with a lot of noises, so I did't have to face the "darkness" inside, alone.

Not really knowing how this would end and how long I was supposed to stay there mentally, I just stayed with that kid on the playground but with the adult me helping.  Crowds rushed in, I deflected all the attention with confidence: "oh hey, I am okay," "no worries, I can skip all by myself," "lol, this is really a great start of my first day of school, isn't it?"

I made sure I completed my exercise.  I stayed in character until I felt like a bird.  I wiped my tears away and laughed.

"Hi, my name is Happiness, Happiness is me."  Today, I'm writing my own future, one chapter at a time.

 

Chapter 2 - Noises (to be continued...)