On Being Sad

Edit: I had this post scheduled for earlier this week.  I lost my nerve, jumped out of bed and intercepted it before it went live.  After some careful thought and discussion with a couple friends, I’ve decided to share.  Be kind, loves.

I am usually the happiest person you’ll ever find–usually to the point of annoyance.  It was a role I was used to; a role I was proud of.

So what happens when that happy girl is sad?  It’s no secret that we’ve had some major changes going on here in the Hodges Household.  And now that all those changes are finally over, and we’ve had a chance to settle into our new life, I feel like I should address what went on.

Back at the start of November the husband and I started tossing the idea around of buying the house we were renting.  We both loved Charlotte, had pretty stable (paying) jobs, and loved our house.  While we both knew (and hoped) in the back of our minds that football could swoop in and change our lives, we were teetering on the idea of just staying put.  This made me feel settled, happy and sure.  I started to let my little mind get comfortable with the idea of staying put; of making our house our home and maybe even let myself dream about starting a family in that house; in Charlotte.

When the news came that J was hired on full-time (the dream) and that we would be relocating to the middle of no where, I just shut down.  I wasn’t going.  It wasn’t happening.  And then came the news that J would be leaving 5 months before I’d get to join him.  I couldn’t see the positive in any of it (despite rational knowledge that the entire thing was positive).

I’m not a professional.  And I never saw a doctor.  But if that wasn’t depression, I don’t know what is.  And what was worse was there I was…The Happy Girl…completely and utterly sad all of the time.  I would go to work in a haze.  I would come home and cry the exhausting kind of sobs.  I felt like everyone around me was telling me that it would pass–that it would go by so fast–basically “get over it.”  I know I wasn’t…but I felt alone.  It was like I was feeling this extra pressure to just be happy that  almost made things worse.

During that time, I was a kind of sad I’ve never been before.  A scary kind of sad.  I was never going to jump into the deep end, but I wasn’t in a good place.  I felt like no one got it.  I felt like no one wanted to deal with me (I don’t blame them).

I’m not writing this for sympathy.  I’m not writing this to brag about how happy I am now.  I’m writing this because it was real and it was okay.  It was okay that I needed some time to process things.  It was okay for The Happy Girl to be sad.


It’s amazing to me that all of that ended not a month ago.  It amazes me how happiness can sometimes totally depend on situations and the people around you.  It also amazes me that something that seemed so negative for the longest time ended up being the kind of change we desperately needed; the kind of change to make us happy.

I’m not proud of what I went through.  I’m embarrassed by it, and I experienced it all out there on the internet for the world to see.  There was no denying through this blog that I was miserable.  You all could see it, I know.  I got some support.  I lost some followers.  I got the comments and the emails telling me to get over it.  I got through it the only way I knew to be possible: by just doing it.  I focused on one thing: being with my husband again.  And everything fell into place around that.

I wrote this for one reason.  If you are sad, it’s okay.  You’re entitled to feel however you need to feel about a situation.  If you’re going through something that seems hard to you but maybe not so hard to others, and it’s tough for you, it’s okay.  I found a lot of hope in reading about other bloggers out there who had to endure something they found to be tough.  So I hope this can help someone out there.  And if not, well, I needed to put it out there anyway.