I think "happy" is a word that is greatly overused.

Eating home-cooked meals makes one happy.

Reading an awesome, insightful book makes me happy.

Enjoying good times with great friends most probably makes you happy.

Seeing that smile on his face and that sparkle in his eye makes even me happy.

Until soon enough, happy isn't sufficient a word to describe all that you're feeling anymore.

What's beyond happy and the simple pleasures in life that make you happy?

What word do you substitute to refer to that level of happiness beyond mere happiness? What do you call that feeling?

That's what's lacking in my life. Not merely being unhappy or not happy.

Have we grown to numb our senses, to desensitize ourselves so much that we no longer find joy in even the simplest things which so easily lifted our spirits?

Or have we merely grown up and moved on, knowing that that superficial level of happiness is not enough to sustain us; not adequate for our long-term survival in a hugely depressing world, a world where we're constantly fighting to retain our sanity?

Give me that feeling beyond simply being happy.

I demand it.


***


It's the same with love.

One person's definition and scope of love differs from the other. What's love to you may not be to me. What's love to me may be strange and absurd to you.

At any single point in time, when we're so absolutely certain that that is the thing that we love; unconsciously, without knowing it, we demand to have it; to own it. It's our gawddamn right.

It ought to have been mine.

Like what Ellie wrote, depression is terribly narcissistic. And I have to agree.

I have to admit that this provided a great avenue, a mighty excuse, for my depression to swim to the surface all over again, to take root and flourish, because I was getting so self-absorbed. It all started very simply, a pure feeling of innocent love, whereby you expected nothing and the little things were enough to keep you bright as a bulb for the rest of the day. And then the little things kept growing onto each other and everything began to grow like a slow poison, slowly infecting you from within, until one day, you're hooked onto it like a drug and you didn't even know when it started. Suddenly, without realising it, you can't imagine life without him, and you sink deeper and deeper into this self-inflicted mire by harbouring thoughts of being with him all day, everyday, and having him all to yourself. Before long, you start to believe that he was the only one who could rescue you from this abyss that only you'd created yourself; he was your saviour and knight in shining armour, and you, his Cinderella, and what could she do but wait for her fairy godmother to bring them together?

Only thing is, in this case, the fairy godmother never appears.

And so you think you have a reason to be depressed, it's entirely warranted and you're not being spoilt and unreasonable.

Like I'd said, it's a perfect excuse.