Hah. Choose that, a-hole.

If happiness is a choice, so is not having cancer. Still stuck with diabetes? You're not choosing hard enough. Choose harder, it's your choice to be sick and therefore it's your fault and you deserve it. Listen to my inspiring message of self-righteousness. If it makes you feel shitty about yourself that's because you're a shitty person who does not deserve to be happy and healthy because you are too stupid and/or lazy to make the right choice. *insert inspirational background image here* (and then go f*** yourself.)

I get it, there are some things that I can (and do) choose that may help me feel less miserable. I could certainly choose to be more miserable than necessary. That's easy. But choosing to not be miserable and choosing to be happy are two different things. My brain does not produce and/or respond to neurotransmitters appropriately. Seratonin, dopamine, norepinephrine, all that good stuff, is either in short supply or is quickly consumed or the receptors are not very receptive or something. That's what it means to have a mood disorder. Most of the time, if life is an emotional landscape ranging from sea level to the peak of Mount Everest, I'm stuck in Saskatchewan. On a good day, I might get a few negligible hills and valleys (think Edmonton... still eerily flat). But I rarely, if ever, get to BC. I vaguely remember what BC feels like. I was there in my childhood sometimes. I know that "extremes" like happiness and sadness exist, I just... only get to look at the postcards. And, being stuck on the prairies, I'm more likely to fall in a hole than find a mountain to climb. Sure, I could choose to manufacture a mountain for myself, but then I am likely to fall into the gaping pit I just dug to get the dirt to make the hill. What a waste of time and effort, and all for something fake and, in the end, harmful.

So, suggesting that someone with a brain like mine should "choose" to be happy is rather like suggesting we "choose" to levitate to a higher elevation. Ain't no mountains here, just willpower. Maybe instead of shaming me for being stuck out here, you could invite me to visit your cottage in the BC Interior for a weekend. Those little tastes of happiness are what sustain me through the long, dark prairie winters of "oh hey your dysthymia just shifted into full-on depression mode". A girl can only "choose" to jump so high, you know.

Home

Seeing the hills and trees in their proper place, filling the void between ground and sky, and breathing the air that tastes of sweet clover blossoms and sun-warmed forest makes me feel desperately homesick.

Although it has been sixteen years since I was uprooted, it still hurts to be torn away from my homeland again. I weep helplessly as the bus careers through my beloved mountains, not knowing when I will escape and return to them once more.