Do Mood Swings Ever Sleep… Or Commit Suicide?
I dislike sad people, they make me sad. Even when it’s my sadness, when it’s internal, I just let it go.

As I was walking naked around my apartment on a Friday night, in the heat that was so intense it felt like it was about to melt my life away any minute, I got struck by one of those excruciatingly uncomfortable thoughts that hit you out of nowhere and for no reason at all: am I happy? Just a few hours earlier I had tears of laugher mess up my mascara and a flock of my favorite people around me as we were making plans to spend the summer in Italy. In that moment, right there — life was good, it really was. And I was happy.
I wasn’t bipolar nor was I on any type of meds, ever. I guess what I was suffering from, or better — am suffering from — is a sense of incompleteness caused by self-imposed and socially triggered expectations I haven’t learned to process right.
But then, I looked down at my tits and remembered I disliked my nipples; I didn’t like my legs or my hips, either. A pimple on my cheek had already taken office on the left side of my face and I wasn’t even rich enough to quickly jump in the car that I didn’t own and drive myself off to the beautician I didn’t book. Suddenly, what normally makes me extremely proud — the fact I’ve had to work since a very early age to earn money and build a name for myself instead of just enjoy the privileges of being born into riches and oblivion — disgusted me. I hated that the cleaning lady I didn’t have won’t come in to help clean the mess I made because I was too busy chasing pavements. I felt miserable, so profoundly miserable without any obvious roots to trace that feeling to.

“If you are going to live somewhere, anywhere — live where people are passionate and open because if we close up, if we don’t build relationships, we’ll end up miserable.”
I mean, I had a great job, a fine paycheck, the most amazing friends in the world that made me feel loved every single day. I had several side business projects I was juggling and I even developed a crush on this guy that was so charming that he made my throat go dry each time he would touch me. Still, it wasn’t enough. A discomfort, a very familiar discomfort of the PM hours took over my day in a second, and I couldn’t shake it off. I wasn’t bipolar nor was I on any type of meds, ever. I guess what I was suffering from, or better — am suffering from — is a sense of incompleteness caused by self-imposed and socially triggered expectations I haven’t learned to process right.
But, is that it? Is internal happiness defined by the external reactions? Have the external expectations grown so subliminally powerful that they’ve become the reason we constantly feel not good enough? I bet all psychology books and life coaching seminars would tell us we should pause THAT feeling and hit PLAY on self-awareness. Nevertheless, we repeatedly continue to suffer from something almost phantom-like but yet so palpable that you can almost grab it by the hand and take it out for some ice-cream… or a plate of mental breakdowns.
To distract myself from whatever the fuck I was feeling, I did the most logical thing of all — the dishes. Like a silver-lining a talk from the other day run through my mind:
“I dislike sad people, they make me sad. Even when it’s my sadness, when it’s internal, I just let it go.” — said a colleague to me the other day as I commented on her always being in the best spirits. “And it’s not that I never get sad, I do. I just process it fast. You have to put on a face, a happy face to be happy. I’ve got a lot of things going on but when it comes to choosing between being sad and being happy — I choose the latter”.

She is Syrian, this colleague of mine — and absolutely gorgeous, if I may add. In her mid-30s, with her hair charcoal black, her eyes radiating wisdom, the type of self-confidence you could cut with a knife, and a very low tolerance for bullshit, the woman owned the room. I’ve found her aura luminous from the moment we met. She seemed like one of those people who, if she were your friend, would lift you up. I loved that about her.
Mind you, the first conversation we had was about gender (ir)relevance, her life in Fiji and a very successful career at the stock market she’d built. The conversation went on to discuss the dynamics of this country she’s found herself in with her reminiscing and casually comparing experiences from before to the one she’s living now. “I love people with fire in them”, she said. “If you are going to live somewhere, anywhere — live where people are passionate and open because if we close up, if we don’t build relationships, we’ll end up miserable.” I remembered just sitting there, listening. It wasn’t anything new to me what she was saying but it was new to hear someone openly talk about it. “You have that. The passion, I mean. The kind of passion that doesn’t care about her red lipstick ending up all over her face if she feels like kissing. It’s admirable, actually”. I then offered her some of my fruit salad while starting to feel overwhelmed.
Have the external expectations grown so subliminally powerful that they’ve become the reason we constantly feel not good enough?
“You are amazing”, I said as she laughed. “Honestly, fantastic. I think you are my favorite person at the office at this point”.

She told me she was divorced, has a 9-year-old son and a boyfriend she’s been seeing for a while. Usually, hearing people talk about divorce makes you want to hug them and hand them a tissue or your therapist’s number but her talk was more a gospel about freedom and love in its purest form than a lament for a past life. “It is what it is, it’s life. Love happens, and then life happens and sometimes the two combined aren’t really a picture you want to look at for longer than a minute. I am all about healthy relationships. After all, it took me so and so years to build a relationship with myself. Do I really get to disrespect myself and stay in a relationship that doesn’t make me happy? No. I am fine on my own, even if it meant being alone forever. It’s solid.” I rarely ever pick up idols along the way but this time around I was sure she was the type of a woman I should strive to form myself into.
I felt miserable, so profoundly miserable without any obvious roots to trace that feeling to.
As I am finishing this post, I am sitting on the floor, wrapped in a bedsheet (I can’t really sit on the floor butt-naked, now can I?) and a few remaining, maybe even too forward-thinking thoughts: what if, WHAT IF… we risked, and really just decided to be happy?
