Smile

Did you know that if you force yourself to smile you'll become happy? That's what they say, at least. I've been trying it and I think it might be working...

It worked when my dad died. His body refused to move for him anymore and all that was left was a husk laying in a hospital bed. I was there when his life left his eyes, still smiling. And I was the only one grinning from ear to ear at his funeral. 

It also worked when my step brother attacked my mother. While I called the police and while the screaming was going on, I was smiling. Afterwards when I was writing a witness report, I smiled then too.

It worked when I was uprooted from my home of 10 years and forced to go to a new school. Just keep smiling...  

Every time I felt like crying, or breaking apart, or just plain wrong, I smiled. It didn't matter that tears would stream down my face while I did it, or that my hands shook, or that I couldn't speak because I was so choked up with words. If I kept smiling it would be alright. I was always told that by so many people...my mother, my father, my siblings, my close friends. "Just smile. It'll get better, we promise," they'd say. Oh how I believed them. How naive I was...

Smiling isn't working anymore. I don't think it ever did. I don't need to smile, I need help. I don't know why my family prevented me from attaining that help, but I need to reach out and grab it. Smiling isn't the way to become happy, smiling is the end result that you want. I want a life where I don't have to force myself to smile...it just comes naturally. I want a life where I wake up and am filled with utter joy at how excited I am to be up and alive.

I want a life where I'm happy.

In order to achieve this I need help. I get that now. I get that I need to go out and talk to someone, get someone to give me advice. And so I'm going to call Dr. Martin and see if he'll check me in to his counseling office.

But a tiny thought has fluttered in the back of my head for a while now.

Are there others forcing themselves to smile? Others going through this same pain? I think about how many years I've forced myself to smile. "Just a little more, keep up your happy face Jocelyn," I'd tell myself.

If that's the case I wanted to make sure that they knew that it's okay to go out and get help. Which is what I'm doing, and why I'm writing.

This is the first step. Admitting I need help. And whenever you're ready, whenever you can't hold up that smile anymore, go get yourself some help too.

And if you don't need it...be glad. Not everyone has that opportunity.