There's something really liberating, I'm finding, in learning that you deserve more than what some people can give. It feels good, to stop settling for less than decent treatment from the people you allow to lay claim to you. It isn't easy to do it, but it prompts such a beautiful release.

It also really sucks and makes me want to hate everyone.

That was easier to kick than I thought it would be...

If I had been a functional person last year and not a train wreck, I would be finishing writing my dissertation right now and would soon have an MA.

I kind of wish I had been a functional person last year.

I am not naturally a happy person.

I'm just not. I have to work really hard at being happy. Right now, I wouldn't say I'm happy; but I'm not unhappy, and I'm not nearly as low as I was this time last year. I worked really hard to get where I am. I had a lot of help from a lot of different sources and I'm not ungrateful for it. But one of the negative side effects of all this is that, as massively hypocritical of me as it is, I'm starting to lose patience with people who refuse to do anything about the absence of happiness in their lives, and content themselves with being depressed, hiding behind it like a mask.

I don't like this. I used to do this myself, until I stopped settling with being miserable. And, in ways, I've been a foul-weather friend to a lot of people, and now I'm dreadfully afraid of tipping the scale in the opposite direction, instead of balancing.

At the same time, I'm tired. I'm tired of listening to people I love complain about the same things over and over again and then refuse to do anything at all to help themselves. I'm tired of trying to help people I can't. I tired of not getting anything out of relationships in which I feel I give a lot.

I just want everyone to be happy, including myself. I'm trying. Will you try too?