Happy on Huntington

Wow, so I was talking with my friends about social media anniversaries and realized that my tumblr one was about now.  I looked in my archives, and my first tumblr post ever was actually two years ago today!!  What perfect timing :)  I like to look back and reflect for milestone occasions such as this, so this won’t be a traditional listy post.  However, do know that I had a very good day filled with friends, cops, the Superbowl, carrot cake, and The Voice.

So let’s get with the reflecting.  I got some (lol, some) homework to do.  I present last year’s anniversary post, which includes a quote from the very beginning of HoH.

My original reason for starting this blog:

This project was actually started out of a desire to a) distract myself from unhappy thoughts and b) appreciate my life more fully.  I’m an anxious person, so I have often worried, actually, I do often worry, about life ending too soon.  I think a step to get over this fear is to be more in the present and appreciate each day for something wonderful in itself.  Enjoying what I have instead of thinking of what I might not have tomorrow, or in a few years, or in a lifetime.

Wow.  I am still an anxious person, and was feeling pretty anxious, in fact, earlier this week, but I am glad to say that it’s a different, less bad type of anxiety now.  I said “Once you start thinking of things that make you happy, you may be surprised how much it can brighten your day,” and I am also glad to say that it has indeed.  I love this blog.  I love thinking of the things that make me happy.  I love that I’ve inspired my friends, that I make them happy by talking about what makes me happy.  I love that they’ve posted on here too :)  I hope that you have also felt that following my blog is a rewarding experience :)  Wow, this sounds like I’m leaving haha.  I’m not.  Happy on Huntington may not live forever, but I have no plans to end it any time soon.

So, another year later and I am happy to report that I am probably at a better place mentally than I was on either of the previous occasions mentioned here.  I know that, on this blog, I mainly focus on the happy, but I have had a lot of hard times.  Some of those times occurred last semester, when I think I did this blog kind of routinely and with less heart than I’d have liked to.  However, spring, or rather, spring semester is always a good time for me, and this one is no different.  I remember some very, very happy and confident times last spring, so I’m not sure if I can say I’m happier now.  However, I am definitely not less happy, and I do think that I am more put-together now.  I mean, I’ll probably always be a crazy person who kind of doesn’t know what she’s doing, but I get better and better at faking it ;)  I’m still struggling to stay on top of some things, and there’s a lot that I haven’t figured out, but I know that I have greatly improved on past behaviors, and that’s really all we can do, I think: strive to be better than what, than who we’ve been in the past.  Ugh, I don’t want to jinx it, but I’m in a really happy place right now.  I haven’t been struggling with anxiety as much at all as I used to.  Since recognizing my issue about the time I started this blog two years ago, I’ve gotten to know that side of myself much better and have made great strides in dealing with it.  I also can say that I am a consciously happier person in general (much of the time, anyway) than I was before I ever started HoH, and it only gets better as time goes on.  Even though I’ve made some posts that I almost feel didn’t deserve to be on this blog because they didn’t have real heart in them, I’m glad that I have never even really thought of giving up this blog.  I’m glad that, even when the going’s been tough, I’ve stuck with it.  Because I always come out on the other side, and I know that this has helped me with that.  Even when I haven’t truly felt happy, I’ve known that happiness exists and that I’ll find it again. And right now, I’m totally in touch with it.  I think that the major positive aspect of this blog in the past year was what it did for me as a person, how it was kind of here for me even when I wasn’t here for myself, if that makes sense, reminding me to keep my chin up <3

So if anyone’s read through this whole thing, thank you.  Thank you for reading and, hopefully, understanding and supporting, and I hope that you gain something from this too.  And even if nobody else is reading, I’m thankful to myself for writing this, for entering the third year of Happy on Huntington.