What is Happiness?

What is Happiness?

Happiness. I always wanted to find a good definition for this word. The word contains the word ''happy''. So my definition of happiness is:
''Happiness is a feeling that comes over you when you know life is good and you cant help but smile. It is the opposite of sadness.''

July 6 - Ten months, six days

Ann can tell that Conner is in a good mood today, because he left a note on her windshield telling her ''she is beautiful''
She compares herself to Conner's mother. She says she doesn't have to be there for Conner, she chose to be there for him. That's what makes her special in her opinion.
While the couple is watching a funny movie, Conner laughs alot. Ann wants to laugh with him, but she cant.  She thinks her laughter is broken, like everything else inside of her. If Conner looks at her she will fake it. Because she wants him to stay happy.

As I mentioned in my previous post, I was not allowed to be happy, unless I was with him. The thing about happiness is, that once it is taken away from you, you start to forget how to be happy. Because it was taken away from me, I didn't know how to be happy. Yes there were moments where I felt joy that I did something right, but I could never let out a smile that was true. The smiles that I had were fake. I felt like a robot. I was walking around but I couldn't feel any emotion. I felt like I was immune to it. The only thing I could show the most was sadness. I was an expert on being sad. That is the only time I showed my true emotion. The thing at that time, I didn't realize it was damaging me so much. I was just naive.
But there were moments that made me satisfied. Times where it was good. When I didn't do any mistakes and he was happy. Ann describes these moments like an ''island in a stormy sea, and she takes them and hide and hope no one finds her.''
These moments I cherished alot. These moments I hold on to, when things got bad. These moments I wished I could forget, because if I forgotten them, I could have left him easier.

Ann thinks he doesn't love her as much as she loves him. She could even be right.
I did more for him than he did for me. I am not a calculative person, but the things I did for him, I wouldn't have done for just anybody. I was mostly forced to do it. I was manipulated. I was made to do it.

After witnessing a fight between Conner and Blake, a friend of Ann, she runs to her mothers house. She doesn't go in, but she wonders what her mother would think if she sees her. If she would nothing how broken she is inside. She wants alot of things. She wants to go into a bed where nothing can hurt her. She wants her mother and the most important, she wants her father to be alive again and protect her like he once did.

I never told my mother about what happened. Even now, after two years, I never really told her the full story. She knows he was a bad person, but she didn't know in what extend he was bad. I never showed her the bruises I had, or the scars. The thing about my mother which is similar to the mother of Ann is that she is a person who judges someone very fast. I don't want my own mother to pity me. I don't want my mother to feel sad that she wasn't able to protect me. I don't want her to feel guilty. It was my mistake and it will stay my mistake.

Ann knows that Conner need her after the fight he has gotten into. But she wonders when this became something else, as it wasn't like this at the beginning.
Her last sentence is :"I don't know what happiness feels like anymore. I am dead to it."

I was dead to it as well.

I am tired of this.

July 16 - Ten months, sixteen days

The chapter starts with Conner asking Ann why she is still together with him. He knows she deserves someone better but he doesn't understand why she is still here with him. 

Ann just replies and says, '' I can live without him. I don't know who I am anymore if I'm not Conner's girlfriend. Doesn't he see that's all I am now? Doesn't he see that I've given up everything for him?''

Although Ann understands that he is not good for her, she still picked him over her own mother. 

Conner claims he hurts her so that she can leave him. But Ann replies saying he is the person she wants him to be. Conner and herself both knows this is a lie. The person Ann wants to be together with only exist in tiny scenes. Its not the whole Conner.

You may wonder why Ann doesn't want to leave him even though she herself understand that he isn't the person she is in love with. When I was in that kind of relationship, I didn't want to be alone. I was scared of being alone. I had goals that i wanted to reach, but i couldn't reach them by being alone. That's what I thought. For the same reasons as Ann, I only saw him. I thought that is what I deserved. The person I fell in loved with was not the same person that was mostly there with me. He, like Conner, only existed in tiny scenes. 

Ann describes her fear of losing Conner. She feels like she is falling down a mountain, clawing at anything she can grab, and she is missing everything and picking up speed and eventually there will be a cliff, and she will become nothing. 

My ex-boyfriend ever did broke up with me. Although I knew it was for the best, I begged him to take me back. I was really begging him. I didn't understand why I had to do it, And i even knew he enjoyed seeing like this. I was desperate. I was afraid. I just didn't want to be alone. I felt like I was thrown into a hole. There's way out. But he was standing at the edge, holding a ladder. But not giving it to me. He was waiting, seeing what I was doing to get out. 

But the thing is, you wont understand how it is to be alone, if you have never been alone. So alone that you just have none but yourself. I was alone. But because of this, I am now not afraid to be alone.

It's nothing. Just like me.

August 30 - One year

This chapter continues from the very first chapter. Connor is angry and has hurt Ann. He shattered the sculpture Ann made for him. The beautiful heart sculpture broke into thousands of pieces.The heart sculpture stands for Ann's hard work. How each piece is not perfect, but all the imperfection becomes a whole that becomes perfect. Each piece stands for the affords Ann spend in it. The hours she searched for sea glass, the hours she put all the pieces together, all of it, shattered, littering the floor."And now it's nothing. Just like me." The glass sculpture broken, even though it was said to be treasured. Connor broke it because of his anger.

The heart symbolizes the love of Ann for Connor. Connor says he would appreciate it, but at the kids of his anger, he destroys it.Have you experienced something that you think: "yes, I have done well" and then someone comes and destroys it. The feeling when you spend hours in something and then it being crushed. It hurts, and it destroys you. You feel alone, hurt and the worst thing is, no one is there to save you. You are left alone to drown in your sorrows.

I myself, have never made something like a sculpture before. But I remember this one experience I had in school.I made cupcakes for school (I am a passionate baker). I remember making it for my spanish class. I made around 25 little cupcakes. They were made with love and they looked really beautiful. My classmates saw them and wanted to try. I saw it as an opportunity to talk to my classmates, my friends I once neglected. From the 25 pieces, left only like 10. When he said he wanted some too, I opened my locker and took one out. He saw there were only 10 left. He then asked me what happened to the rest. I said " I gave it to my friends. You could see his blood boiling, how angry he became that I gave it to other people. He freaked out and throw the whole box on the ground, throwing a few at me. He said, I was a bitch and that if he can't have many, no one else can.The efforts I did. The hours I spend. Backing made me happy, made me free. He destroyed it, because he was jealous i talked to someone. I was not allowed to talk to anyone.
The cupcakes that were once perfect and beautiful, were now destroyed, smashed and useless. Like me.
How could I allow someone to destroy me like destroying the beautiful little cupcakes?

I have done well

"I have done well." These are the words Ann says at the end of this chapter.  

July 30 - Eleven months

Today is the day Ann wants to reveal her sculpture to Connor. She is excited but when he arrives home, she hears from his voice that he isn't in a good mood. The sound of his voice has a dangerous edge to it. A edge to tell you to stay away. Before it can simmer, stew and explode.
She panics because she doesn't want to show him the heart when he is in this mood. When she hands him the beautiful heart, she wants him to smile. She wants to hide it, before his reaction could disappoint her, but he finds it before she can do so.He smiles, and wraps his arms around her. And she know she has done well.

I have done well. Something that not everyone can say in this kind of relationship. I never admitted that I have done something well. Because admitting it means you accepting something, even when it goes wrong.And being disappointed is the worst feeling ever. I understand how Ann feels. She made something with all of her heart. She worked for it, she wants to be happy. She deserves to be happy. And for that moment she is happy, and that no one can take it away from her.