Lifespam.

Sometimes, there just isn't any way to be funny when life is crappy.  My life isn't that crappy, but there is definitely some crappy stuff -- and also funny stuff -- but I haven't wanted to write about it because I feel like maybe I'll marginalize myself, or get myself dooced, or, I dunno, be one of those bloggers who overshares, which is awkward.  I don't write about happiness, even, because I've felt like such an asshole in other areas of my life.  And assholes don't deserve happiness.  Just ask Gaddafi.

As I write this, I'm realizing how much I don't share -- or write -- because of my own censorship.  Starting with the fact that I disrupted my mostly happy relationship earlier this year by calling off an engagement and a wedding, I have resisted any and all means of having to accept my hand in the serious unhappiness of someone I love very much.  Not out of avoidance or cop-out, but the kind of guilt which elicits the kind of self-loathing that drives one into seriously dark places that take a really long time to climb out of, and which cloud otherwise content moments of semi-normalcy.  Healing is such a long road; I liken it to recovery from major surgery or a bone fracture or something: most of the time, you're simply aware that a part of you is not quite right, until you bang your wound on the refrigerator door or step the wrong way over your threshold, and then it's like, Fuck, that hurts.

It's been only recently that I've been able to acknowledge, in a full-circle type of way, my right to happiness.  Mostly this has happened because of all the time I've been spending alone in my house, sans Internet, going through boxes of crap I've lugged along with me, move after move.  It's been really cathartic to look at evidence of past lives I've lived, while acknowledging the excess involved in keeping stuff around that only serves as painful reminders of what once was.  I don't know why I've clung to some of that stuff for so long; maybe I felt like I needed proof of who I was so that, if I ever forgot, I could be reminded.  But something about the last few weeks (or months, maybe) have sort of been creeping up on me and suddenly, I am tapped on the shoulder and reminded that I carry what's necessary inside of me, both good and bad.  I don't need every artifact of everything that ever was to confirm it. 

In some ways, when I really think about it, it's actually pretty masochistic, so part of my new search for Bright and Shiny instead of Dark and Twisty is acknowledging when something, however innocent, is simply bad joojoo.  Like, if it makes me feel bad, then it's bad.  I'm not talking about becoming a Pleasantville drone, I'm simply talking about choosing a life and an attitude of abundance, instead of deprivation.  Because honestly, when I think about the people I've known who have had the best energy, the most warmth, and ultimately the kind of life I want to live: they are grateful, and they are hopeful.

The man pictured above is the source of much recent happiness.  This is Josh. 

I post this picture without anxiety that Josh will be shy or weird that I have identified him, because Josh is not shy about being my boyfriend, publicly or otherwise.  I could post roughly three million and forty pictures of him all over my blog or Facebook, and he would just smile at me and be happy that I claim him for my own.  He is probably the most affectionate, outwardly loving man I have ever known, and he withholds nothing.  I, therefore, withhold nothing.

Josh is overwhelmingly positive, and not in an obnoxious way.  He lives this sort of peaceful warrior existence, in total concert with the Universe, and always has an attitude of, "It will work out."  Not gonna lie: that statement often times makes me wanna ninja somebody in the face.  But dude.  Something about believing that it will, in fact, work out, just lends itself to that becoming your reality instead of the constantly negative bubble that so many of us live in, always wanting, always angry at somebody or something for not gifting us with total complacency.  

The promise of it all working out was, after all, what got me through the initial months of deep sadness that ultimately ended my last relationship: when all was said and done, I simply had to believe that I could be happy, reckon that I'd tried everything else, and that I could be alone for the rest of my life if I had to, so long as I was in constant search of the kind of happiness and joy I knew was possible for me.

So anyway, happiness is a journey, right?  But it's an internal one, not dependent on external circumstances, and I think for the first time in my life I see how important it is to simply choose happiness.  Because seriously: I have had years of joy riddled with bullets of devastation, which have totally altered the shape and experience -- and even the memory -- of that happiness.  The feeling that stuff just keeps happening to you can be one of the heaviest feelings ever.  But with some priceless alone time in my house in the mountains, I am unburdening myself with what has happened.  Because, yes, it happened, but now it's over.  Shitty stuff doesn't have to keep happening.  It can shit and be done with it.

Josh and I were sitting on his couch last night, and I don't remember exactly how this came about, but Josh thought I said "lifespam" instead of "lifespan."  I made a joke that Lifespam is what the shitty stuff in life is: the unwanted, unnecessary, bombardment of crap that fills up our emotional inboxes and distracts us from the real messages we get on a daily basis.

So what if we could just do what Google has enabled: check all, mark as spam, and delete FOREVER: