I AM NOT 100 percent happy with my life.
Because I am unemployed, and spend most of my days enjoying my retirement, and thinking about my life, I know what I’m talking about.
I mean, I think about my life most of my waking hours.
And that can amount to 16 hours a day.
Imagine that—16 hours of introspective reflection.
*
I sleep six, maybe seven, hours nowadays.
I can’t stay in bed longer.
My body aches if I linger in bed.
Unless I have company.
In which case, I stay in bed.
But obviously, not to sleep.
*
Excepting with lovers who stay the night, I usually eat breakfast alone.
And while I have my coffee, and my Broadway musicals playing on my iPhone playlist, I think of my life.
All 50 years of it.
All my achievements, which would seem like several lifetimes.
All the petty regrets I’m trying to correct.
All the tragedies that made me the formidable person that I am today.
And guess what, I always end up thankful.
*
I’m not a goodie-goodie person.
Far from it.
But I am decidedly good.
I am not a bad person at all.
I am a badass.
But I am not a bad person.
*
I am not cruel, or mean, or evil.
I do not wish anybody harm.
Wait. That’s not so true.
Okay, maybe one, or two.
But I got my reasons for hating these five people.
And wishing them dead.
But I’m okay if they don’t die.
For as long as they suffer before they croak.
*
But seriously, I do more good than harm in real life.
I’m really a nice person to the rest of the world.
Kind. Compassionate. Helpful. Generous, even.
To the seven billion plus.
And hating five people in eight billion isn’t really much, right?
I don’t want to be perfect!
*
Something tells me I will be totally happy, 100% happy, if I learn to love these last five persons.
I don’t want that.
I think that will be a boring life.
To be 100% happy.
I’m even afraid that will stop me from being grateful to God—being 100% happy all the time.
I want my misery.
I want to be just 99.99% happy with my life.
*
I want to feel some anger.
Some pain.
Some tragedy.
I want a little suffering.
If my gout, and other illnesses, do not give it to me, I want to feel my broken heart.
Why do you think I fall in love like a train wreck?
Why do you think I remain a romance junkie?
*
I cry a little every day.
On a perfect day, when everything seems right, I put on a sad movie so that I could cry.
Cry over lost loves.
Cry over what-could-have-beens.
And I like that.
That I can feel so human.
So vulnerable.
And I end up grateful. I praise God.
And go to sleep.
*
I allow myself a certain sadness a few minutes a day.
A few hours, if I’m lucky.
Or if I am not very busy.
Just so I can say, I’m not 100% happy with my life.
It’s a good exercise.
On a good week, I try to be miserable for at least 3 hours on one of the days.
Just so I can say, I’m not happy with my life seven days a week.
*
On the whole though, I have a happy life.
I am content with what I have.
And what I have become.
I am proud of myself.
I am ready to go anytime, if it be God’s will.
(But in God’s time please!)
I think I am good with the people who care enough about me.
I am perceived as loving by the people I truly care about.
I am adored by my fans to whom I am, and will always be, truly grateful.
*
I really am not a bitter person.
I am not angry with the world.
I can be angry with certain things.
Like certain people’s incompetence, ignorance, and evil designs.
But it’s not that I can’t ignore them if I want to.
I can deal with those.
*
I know how to detox myself of toxic people, and situations.
But you see, sometimes, I give myself to anger just to let my steam off.
Sometimes, I get angry just for fun.
That really turns me on! (500tinaga@gmail.com/PN)
