pudding

how is it possible to be going the direction you want to go in life and still feel like you are failing miserably? i've got a job, i went to school for my future career, i've lost some of the weight, i'm seeing a shrink regularly, i'm taking my meds, my family may be coming to visit in the next few months, i have a husband, our money situation is looking up and i still feel completely empty. what am i missing here? i had always thought of california as this land of possibility, this place where i could live the dream and be whatever i want and do whatever i want and finally be happy and at peace with my life and my self. i thought i could get away from needing to feed off manic energy to make it through the day. i thought that once i got out of missouri everything that had upset me there would just disappear and i wouldn't have to deal with those issues anymore. but you can't ever truly get away from the skeletons in your closet. you can't get away from the things that you said or did or had done to you. the reason i can't get away is because someone will always remember, even if i manage to forget someone else will always remember. everyone fucks up from time to time. i feel as though i have to be fucked up to be okay, that the more chaos i create in my life the more i am wound up the better i function. i can't handle life when everything is okay, contentedness is not my way of life. there is no excitement and energy in contentedness. although if you are content you don't have to apologize nearly as much as when you are not. when life goes smoothly i get bored and depressed. i wonder all the time if i simply can not be happy. i wonder if i've ever experienced true happiness without that chaotic edge to it. and i do what i can to get that feeling, i change my hair, change my makeup, pierce this, tattoo that, change clothes, read this, write that, cut this, bruise that, talk to my family to calm myself down, but it doesn't last long. songs on the radio will make me cry as though someone had punched me in the face. the unhealthier parts of be are beginning to surface again, i'm tired of trying so hard to be happy and missing the mark time and time again.