Hunting for Happiness

      Most of my life I have been hunting for happiness.  I think it's normal to have ups and downs when it comes to this subject but I have had more downs than ups.  I have had the same cycle of being depressed and lonely since forever and I want it to end!  The causes of this continual cycle are the rough family relationships and loss of friends.  Everything always gets better but then goes back down.  I know we are not supposed to be look for it by depending on other people but in a sense they play a part in it.  Think about it.  Wouldn't you be more happy if you had a partner/spouse, a good group of friends and family, a job and so on.  When the basics are missing, how could that not affect your mood?  I have had several times when I had none of those at the same time.  So last year I decided to change my settings.  I had to just accept people for who they are and I'm talking about my female friends mainly....and my mom.  I had to stop expecting a higher level of treatment because of who they were and how long we have known each other.  That makes no difference I've learned.  If we had a fall out because of something they keep doing, I couldn't take it personal anymore.  It wasn't the first time or the last.  They were showing me who they really were and I didn't want to believe it.  Now I do!       This weekend I had some R&R...reflecting and revelations.  I have been going back and forth whether I should move back to Atlanta, usually when I had family drama.  I was so tired of it and that was the reason why I left 10 years ago.  That distance helped tremendously.  It made me closer to my mom and sister.  When I came back, we became distant and had the worse times that we have ever had, to the point where I thought we were going to be estranged for a while.  I wrote down the people who I consider my close friends.  The main female friend and I have had plenty fall outs.  I wrote down every year that I knew her, what happened that year and how long were we actually on speaking terms and hanging out.  Out of every year, we were 'friends' for 5-6 months!  And we had a 2-year hiatus.  It was so crazy that every time the 6-month mark came, something happened and we had a break up.  As a result, I changed her category to a season(al friend).  It was misleading because when we were on we were soooooooo close and had so much fun.  I crossed her off the list.  Then I crossed off another male friend who is going to the military.  The last friend is trying to move here.  In the end, there was no RIGHT reason to move back to Atlanta.  I have a great job here, the kind that always wanted.  I have friends that I can talk to for support, even though most of them are out of town.  No matter where I move, I was trying to adopt their great social life and I can’t do that or expect them to always be available for me. When it came down to it, regardless of the city, it was only one person that I could say that I could depend on as a friend to hang out with. I already have one here. I decided to accept my life as it is and hope that it gets better. I’m thankful for the people that I have in my life. To have the best of both worlds, I will travel as much as possible to meet up with them and continue our long distance friendships. For now I will keep working so the more I can play!