Dariane Nabor

i may not be perfect but you should embrace me for all that i am
- The title of the art project

The Art Project

The other day at work, one of my male coworkers put a blank white sheet of paper in front of me, handed me a permanent marker and told me to list the things that make me happy.  He asked for me to put down 10-15 things.

Music. Puppies. Eating a burger. Being with my boyfriend…

“No, no, no don’t put that, that’s something a girl would say. Write it as if you were me.” It felt a little weird to me because he told me that it was a homework assignment, so it seemed like he wanted me to do his homework for him.  I reluctantly listed the first 11 things that came to mind in less than five minutes. When I handed the sheet back to him, he crossed off “Puppies” and put “Dobermans” and crossed off “boyfriend” and replaced it with “ex-girlfriend.”

He came up to me later and asked me to help him with the same assignment. I refused. He tried to convince me by saying that it was an assignment for another female coworker. I didn’t believe him.

Later Nancy, that aforementioned female coworker, came up to me asking if I would like to be a part of her art project for a class. It turned out that she asked my male coworker to be a part of the project too.  I said “sure” and she put a blank white sheet of paper in front of me and handed me a permanent marker. She asked me to write down one word that means happiness to me. She explained that it could be anything that makes me happy, anything in the world that to me embodies real happiness. As she explained, my mind raced with so many words that described things that make me happy. I latched to one word I knew I wanted to write even before she finished, so when she did I immediately began writing.

She was pleased. She took a picture of me holding up the sheet of paper with my answer. Then she turned to our male coworker.

“See how easy that was for her? It took her two seconds to write something, but it has taken you hours to even think of something to write.”

My male coworker spent hours just thinking about his happiness. He struggled so much to find that ONE word that embodied happiness to him that he tried to make a list of things instead. And when he couldn’t think of anything, he asked me to writeI, on the other hand, didn’t take long to think of the things that make me happy, or to even think of one word that I thought embodied happiness to me. I was shocked by the irony.

Perfectionism and Overthinking

People spend a lifetime searching for happiness; looking for peace. They chase idle dreams, addictions, religions, even other people, hoping to fill the emptiness that plagues them. The irony is the only place they ever needed to search was within.

- Ramona L. Anderson

That male coworker of mine spent more time thinking about getting his answer just right instead of letting go and doing the simple task at hand. I engage in the practice of overthinking far more than I should, probably more often than my coworker. Time just seems to fly by after I’ve spent hours thinking of a decision and every possible outcome, thinking of every which way something could go right and every which way something could go wrong.

This struggle to decide on an answer happens most often for me when someone asks what I want to do. What do you want to do with your life? What do you want to do next year? What do you want to do for dinner? What do you want to do this weekend? I freak out to the maxx. I simply don’t know. I wish I could hand a blank white sheet to someone and ask them what they want to do, take the sheet back from them as my own and change the answers so that they’re gender appropriate.

An even worse case in which I feel this urge to overthink and find my perfect answer is when someone asks me how I’m doing. Cards on the table here, whenever someone asks I almost always lie. The only consistent times I don’t lie about how I’m doing are 1) when I’m feeling amazing and 2) during my therapy sessions. So I’ve mastered hiding the urge to overthink (which thereby creates a conversational lull) by answering with a quick and melodic “Okay.”

You see the irony in all of this is that a year ago I was diagnosed with what clinicians call major depression. I think I’ve been depressed for much longer, but I didn’t build the courage to set up an appointment with a therapist and a psychiatrist to diagnose me until about a year ago. Medication, ideation, hospitalization… and all that jazz. Even now, the depression is far from gone. It’s a quiet secret I’ve tried to keep for as long as I possibly could because let’s be real, who wants to work with, be friends with, or be related to someone who is mentally unstable? I refuse to acknowledge depression as being central to who I am, but it’s a label that can be easily attached (not only by the depressed person, but also by the re/actions of others). Although I refuse to let depression define me, I can’t disregard how pervasive it is in my life day-to-day.

Why I’m Writing This (or Why I Published This Post)

That little exercise that my coworker and I were asked to be a part of a couple days ago gave me an opportunity to surprise myself. When asked how I’m doing, I give the auto-pilot response. When asked what I want to do, I freeze up. But when asked to describe in one word what makes me happy, it took me two whole seconds to write an honest and meaningful answer in spite of my ever-present feeling of melancholy. Even a list of 11 things took only five minutes to write.

In that moment, I realized that I’ve come a long way from where I was a year ago both mentally and emotionally. While there is still more introspection left to do, I am comforted by the fact that I can recognize at least one thing that makes me happy in the world. This realization has given me a hope that one day when someone asks me what I want to do, I can respond by saying I want to pursue a certain thing that makes me happy. And when someone asks me how I’m doing I can respond, “Fantastic!”

The 11-things-that-make-me-happy list I wrote in five minutes to appease the coworker whom I thought wanted me to do his homework for him:

• Music.
• Puppies.
• Spending time with my boyfriend.
• Going to the beach with friends or family.
• Parties (or just hanging out with friends).
• Watching good movies.
• Sleeping.
• Eating a burger from Umami (or In-N-Out if I’m on a budget).
• Dancing.
• Traveling.
• Thinking about people I love and care about.

Five more things that make me happy that I would have responded with if he didn’t ask me to write the list on his behalf:

• Writing
• Performing
• Meeting cool people
• Helping others
• Finding something after it’s been lost for a while

The one word that to me embodies real, awesome happiness (a graphic representation of what I actually wrote):

L♥VE : )

–

Update: Nancy’s art project, as well as my small contribution to it, can be viewed at her website: nansea.net > table of contents > chapter one. The project is ongoing, so if you’d like to take part in it you can email her at love [at] nansea [dot] net.