Comfortable Misery

“But you could do better.” She says in a voice both comforting and edged with impatience.

“I don’t want better! I want him.” I continue to cry and refuse her comfort as only a 22 year old sleeping on a twin bed next to her sister could.

I had just been slowly and brutally dumped by a boyfriend who did not like me. A boyfriend who at one point told me “I spoiled my other girlfriends but not you.” I think that was actually the day he realized he didn’t like me but still couldn’t figure out how to gently let me down. I have a theory that it’s my eyes. Dumping me to my face would be like kicking a puppy and he wore steel toed boots. He finally did the deed via an email that ended with ‘best of luck in your future endeavors.’ I couldn’t break down in a college library so it was really the perfect plan.

Yes, dear reader. Wayne State University is where I earned both my Social Work degrees and also where I had been dumped in both the kindest and cruelest way. Go Warriors!

It took some space and years but I really like telling this story. I spent most of my life in situations that confirmed my lowest opinion of myself. I lived in unrequited love and jobs that took me for granted. I don’t know that I really appreciated how much I didn’t like myself until I forced myself to really look at my past behaviors and what I accepted from others. I like myself now enough to be honest which is no small accomplishment. This story (and others) reminds me that I’m not that girl anymore.

Misery can be comfortable when it is familiar. It doesn’t require you to risk anything and the effort to maintain an unhappy existence feels minimal in the moment. It is only later, when you finally risk putting forth an effort, that you come to see that complacency is actually quite a bit of work. The mental exercises needed to normalized a miserable state is exhausting. But at least you know what it’s like to be unhappy. Taking a chance and working towards something better is scary and the opposite of comfortable. It’s also annoyingly necessary.

Many years later, from my own bed in my own apartment and not crying, I would describe it to my sister like this:

“It’s like when you have to go throw up but you don’t want to leave your warm bed to actually go throw up so you spend the night fighting it, feeling unwell but still warm. Eventually though, you gotta get up because no one wants to throw up in the bed.”