“Oh no!” I shouted as my lamp, and what seemed like a million other things, toppled from my dressing table to the floor. Pulling my phone from my pocket to shine the light behind my draws I saw my small, metal, jewellery box on the floor. It’s the tiniest jewellery box I’ve ever seen; when I saw it in a charity shop with a £1.49 price tag, I knew it had to come home with me.
Holding it, I imagined that it perhaps once lived on an old ladies dressing table; maybe she kept her antique rings and delicate necklaces within it. Sadly, I’ve never found anything special enough to put in it since I became its owner. Or so I thought, anyway.
As I picked up the open jewellery box from the floor, I noticed a small piece of paper had fallen out of it. Unravelling the piece of paper, I found it had once lived in a fortune cookie that I had got with one of my many Chinese takeaways.
‘Your life will be happy and peaceful’
“That’s just a generic fortune!” I hear you say? Yes, I agree wholeheartedly, but I remember cracking open the cookie that held that piece of paper, and laughing as I read it – happy and peaceful? What a joke!
I’m a sentimental person, and I keep all kinds of rubbish and, arguably, maybe I should have thrown this fortune away like the many that came before and after. But I guess despite the thought of a happy and peaceful life verging on the hilarious, I decided to keep it in hope that maybe, one day, it might come true.
Remembering what a preposterous idea a happy and peaceful life once was felt shocking to me! Back then, I couldn’t imagine a life that didn’t feel thick with depression and chaos, or a life that didn’t feel suffocating and as if I was being buried alive.
In hindsight, I find it far more absurd to imagine settling into a life filled with stifling depression. I would often think about how much I hated my life. Even writing that creates such a sorrowful feeling in my chest – how could I hate my life when it’s so beautiful? But I had no idea just how beautiful life could be.
Depression had me in a chokehold, and it’s true what they say, ‘You cannot heal in the same environment that made you sick’ I changed my environment, physically and mentally, and I’ve since found myself thinking about how much I love and appreciate my life; and coincidentally, just how happy and peaceful it feels.
Whether life feels good or bad, it will change at some point. It could be in a day, a week, or ten years – change happens whether we like it or not, and I think we forget about that when we’re in both extreme highs and heart-breaking lows.
Happiness sometimes becomes a fleeting emotion, which makes the moments it shows its lovely face in all that bit better. I am grateful for happiness, even in the smallest of doses. And equally, when the inevitable moments of depression wash over me, I acknowledge that it won’t be forever, even if it can feel similar to an giant avalanche.
I had been angry at myself for being so clumsy and knocking over my lamp, and sending a whole load of things flying, but if I hadn’t, I would have never known I had even kept that, maybe-not-so-silly, fortune. I would not have been reminded that life changes and that I am very grateful that it does!
Gwen Richards 