Chapter Thirteen: The Pursuit of Happiness (~jinghan)

I have been tossing an turning trying to work out what topic to choose for my Knowledge, Learning and Culture essay… Maths? Teaching? But then an idea strikes me and I know that nothing else will be quite as good in comparison: Happiness.

—

A great sadness wells up inside me, and pours forth in a flow of tears. They are not tears of anguish, wrung with painful words. They are tears like a bottled up ocean finally freed to pour forth and fill the world. And in its salty, warmth I curl up silent, exhausted and grateful.

—

I’ve been holding my breath and it’s finally the last day of uni before the Easter break and it all happens in one sentence no commas no time to take a breath no time to think I roll out of bed realise I’ve slept through my alarm rush out of the house without breakfast have a train cancelled get to uni vaguely on time spend three hours working on my informatics assignment with my group go to my lecture only a minute after it has started have coffee with my teacher because there were only four of us in class go to my tutorial with the same people write a birthday card while tramming to melbourne central read a book while training home throw on some party clothes drive to the dentist drive home drive to a party make conversation drive back with my friend in the car make sleep-over conversation into the night and I feel like there has not been a fullstop right until my friend leaves the next morning.

I find myself, quite suddenly, alone in the house filled with silence and the pale sunlight of a grey Easter day. For a few minutes I stand there not knowing what to do.

My room is an aftermath of my previous day, clothing thrown down without time to be hung up, doona tossed aside exactly as it had been the previous morning when I realised I had slept through my alarm, computer still on with the party address open on facebook. It is the room of someone who hasn’t had a full stop for twenty four hours.

After the buzz and rush of busyness the silence feels unnatural. I plug my ipod into the speakers and play the shrek soundtrack. I put my coat on a hanger and hang it in my wardrobe. And slowly the world picks itself up and attempts to straighten itself. Order peeks around the corner as if trying to judge if it is safe to come back.

“I’ve heard there was a secret chord
That David played, and it pleased the Lord
But you don’t really care for music, do you?”

It’s not the lyrics, but the throbbing emotion of the voice that suddenly strikes me. I try to sing along but the words fade in my throat and all the emotion that I’ve only half felt, that I’ve tripped over, dance around and skitted past in the busyness of the past few weeks suddenly surfaces. A great sadness wells up inside me, and pours forth in a flow of tears. They are not tears of anguish, wrung with painful words. They are tears like a bottled up ocean finally freed to pour forth and fill the world.

Everything hurts. Like the sort of hurt you feel when the sun suddenly streams into the room and into your eyes, leaving you with blinking and salty water. Like the sort of hurt you feel when the truth wells up in your chest and bubbles up in your throat and you can barely breath because of it.

It hurts because I know I’m struggling with maths. I barely want to admit it. It’s the one thing I thought I could depend on to be on my side even if everything else was trying to trod me down. I feel betrayed. It hurts.

It hurts because I know I need to let go of the unrealistic expectations I have of how well I should do with my study. Because I have all the H1s of last year riding me like a black curse. I’m scared because I don’t want to find out that if I’m not good at study I’m not good at anything. It hurts.

It hurts because I can’t help feeling so bitterly jealous of my friends who are enjoying their subjects, breezing through or enjoying the work and the pace. With enough time to help me when I stumble and scramble to comprehend. I need their help but I hate it all at once. And it hurts.

It hurts because I need people to love me, but cannot always give them what they want in return. I break hearts. I’m scared to get too close now. It hurts.

It hurts because I’ve been here (emotionally here) before and I’m scared that each time it will get harder to pick myself up. You can distract yourself with happy things, but it doesn’t solve anything and the feeling you can’t work out will come back. And because I know that some time in the past I’ve felt happy and on top of everything, I can’t help occationally thinking “What is wrong with me? What did I do wrong?” And I know that its a really awful thing to think, because you’re taking the power away from yourself, but sometimes the thought sneaks in and punches all the air out of you. And it hurts.

It hurts because I’m scared that all the things that made me happy and that I was good at are being taken away from me, leaving me with nothing.

My friend listens patiently. “Jinghan, you are a teacher. And one of the most wonderful people I’ve ever met. As a teacher, you don’t need to have really good marks, you just need to understand what you’re teaching and to be a good communicator. And I think you’ll do fine at that,” says my friend whose heart I broke, whom is better at maths than me, whom does so much more with his life without getting half as stressed, whom I am desperately jealous of, who helps me with maths, whom I can’t help hating for being better than me at maths, whose friendship I want, to whom I can’t give what he wants.

And all I can say is “thankyou… thankyou for saying that…”

“I think the net effect has been positive. Even though I might have wanted things to be different, I have grown a lot through it all. So don’t for one moment believe that those things you are good at are bad just because they can hurt people. Because they also enrich people at least as much.”

“Thankyou…”

And in the salty, warmth I curl up silent, exhausted and grateful.

And the hurt subsides.