What makes you happy?

I’ve been sitting here, starring at a blank screen for nearly an hour. I decided to take a break from writing a paper and write a blog entry. Truth is, I’m having equal amounts of success getting words on the page.

It’s one of those weeks where nothing I do works. It’s one of those weeks where I can’t remember how to get anything done and can’t remember what keeps me going. It’s one of those weeks I wish I could fast-forward through and get to the good parts of life again. (Or rewind so I can figure out how to avoid these parts of life.)

The worst part, for the first time, I feel like I cannot help myself. I need help. And honestly, I’ll take whatever help I can get. I walk into the convenient store, and the clerk knows I’m having problems. He gave me chocolate this week – much like he did on Valentine’s Day when he asked me if I had a valentine and I told him ‘no’. Only this time, it was just a, ‘Here – you could use this.’ I thanked him and walked home – only after going around the block a couple times.

I’m at a point right now where I’ll take any advice I get – and I’m getting a lot of it. Too bad most of it doesn’t help. Nothing anyone says can make me happy. Nothing anyone else can say can bring me back to a place where I need to be to feel good about myself. I need to do it myself. Someone can help and show me the general direction of where the ladder to get out of the hole is, but nobody can pull me up the ladder.

So I pose this question: What makes you happy?

I used to know quite easily what made me happy: Muppets, toy cars, my music, New York City, French Movies…I had a pretty in depth list. I always knew when I was feeling down what to do, where to go, who to be with, in order to get out of it as quickly as possible.

I’m to the point now, that I’m only managing. I’m getting out of bed every morning, and that’s all I can ask at times, but I only make it through the day because of something mildly embarrassing: A 2-inch stuffed dog in my right pocket. By looking, you wouldn’t know it’s there, seeing as that’s normally where I keep my Palm Pilot and the pocket is usually not empty, anyway. Any time the world starts to get overwhelming, I reach my hand into my pocket and start petting this dog, and then things feel a little better…at least better enough that I don’t need to run away from whatever situation I’m in.

Funny – I don’t tell people this, except for the few that know exactly what I’m going through, but I have no problem posting this on my blog, and then publicizing the fact that this entry exists…go figure. But I digress.

So what about this dog makes me able to make it through the day? What about this dog makes me happy?

It has nothing to do with the dog. It is irrelevant that it’s soft and quite cute. It has everything to do with what this 2-inch stuffed animal represents: Innocence. It reminds me of a time when I had not a care in the world. When life was good just to sit, watch movies, sing, and play with toy cars and hug stuffed animals. For some reason, only the stuffed animal is left to make me happy.

Perhaps it’s that it’s the only thing I can really enjoy to such a large extent in a large group in public, or, say, in the middle of class. I can’t start singing in the middle of class, and I don’t sing to my heart’s desire when I’m in such proximity with people (so any time in the dorm…) who may hear me. I’m not ashamed of my voice, I’d just rather belt my lungs out while in a car driving at 65-miles-an-hour and the windows up, or in my house at my piano with nobody else home. Or even in the shower, when nobody else is home. But I’m always afraid to sing when others are around. I mean, I’m not a singer, and people, for some reason, find it important to remind me of this any time I seem to forget and act otherwise.

I can’t watch a movie in class, and at home, I haven’t found the movie to make me happy. I just bought (and have now watched twice) “The Umbrellas of Cherbourg”, and I’m loving it. It is a French movie entirely sung with music by Michel Legrand, whom I discovered in some of his work with such jazz greats as Stan Getz and Bill Evans, but this movie is fantastic. It’s a real tear-jerker, and it is one of the most aesthetically pleasing movies I’ve ever seen. But it still makes me cry, if only because it’s supposed to.

Toy cars, I just don’t have the space to play with them. And I haven’t found one of quality high enough for me to enjoy as a 21-year-old or fun enough to play with as the 8-and-a-half year-old I want to be. So I’m stuck without that.

But this dog, this 2-inch ball of cotton and other synthetics, it makes me happy. With how much I’m relying on him, I may ware out the patch of fuzz on his head quite quickly, but that’s okay. The way I see it, he gets me through the day. And while it’s pathetic that a stuffed dog is getting me through the day, I have SOMETHING to get me through the day.

I can’t do this alone. And as much as people are helping me, it’s the wrong people. I’ll always take the help, but their help has not actually helped. It’s made me feel like people are there, and they are, but they aren’t doing anything. I don’t know if anyone can really help, but I wish someone did.

For now, I have a dog. That’s what makes me happy. (Now if only I could come up with a name for him…)