I am just waiting for something to happen

Things continue on their steady path. Things are good, still. Part of me is starting to get a little scared at the thought of this going away. I'm not sure what that's about, but i'm hoping to be able to learn to control it. I'm hoping it's something i can just control, rather than a sign of a change on the horizon.

It's been a while now. I've noticed what seem like some systemic changes. I'm calmer, I'm, obviously, happier, and...well, the calmness is so much bigger than i'd expected. It's so good. The biggest deep change i've felt, though, is something i hadn't really expected. I used to sit around sad waiting for something to happen, something to change, something to get better for me. It was such a desperate, hopeless feeling...hopeless in that i knew it was never going to happen. I knew the getting better had to come from me, not from somewhere else. I thought it was never going to come.

Now, i'm so calm. I ride the subway, not looking sad, but feeling calmly happy and expectant--not that something's going to come along and fix me, or make me happy, or cure me of all that's wrong with me. The sense of expectation comes from the knowledge that I'm now ready to receive the world in a healthier way, that i'm working my way toward being able to take from the world the things other people have been able to take, and of which i've been so jealous...calmly expectant because i don't need for those things to happen at all in order to be happy. I'm going to be happy, first, and then those things, perhaps, will happen. If not, it's OK.

The way i see people is healthier. I don't love them or hate them all at once. I don't feel disgust or overwhelming joy or longing or any other completely inexplicable and ridiculous emotion when i see anonymous people on the train or in union square, like i have so often before. I see people, just like me, who deserve only the benefit of the doubt that they are just as good as me, and no better, and no worse. We're all in this together. But we're all on our own and have to make it through that way.

I know i used that feeling of waiting and wanting to get me through the hard times. I knew i was watching my life pass me by, living in fear of trying new things, waiting for something external to fix me before i dared try. That is going away. I want to go out and try. I want to make things happen for me, not wait for them. Because i know they won't necessarily ever come. And fuck that. I'm tired of waiting.