The Sun Will Set to Rise

I have a confession, that is not really a confession to those of you who know me well: I generally dislike most people and most things. This is true, no matter what anyone tells you. Things I love include my kitten, Apple products, cheese, coastal California, aaaannnnnnddd.... oooh, sleep! I love sleep. We'll stop there because I'm starting to reach. It's not that I hate everyone and everything, it's just that I seem to get easily annoyed by idiots who are doing idiotic things. Therefore, I don't generally love things or people. I think this tends to put me on the grumpier side of life.

However.

I noticed something the other day. I'm currently genuinely happy. No joke. And do you know where I realized this? On the bus. Of all places. The last few months have been pretty good to me. In February, I got a kitten who is the most adorable, people-loving kitten in the entire infinitum- a word I may have just made up- of everything. And she loves me, even when I leave her and go to work all day. My dad finally conceded when I appealed to him with the sad story of my sad life and gave my crushing loneliness as the reason I needed a kitten. Then, at the very same time I got Rosie, I also found out about the kidney. A month later, the transplant happened and it was the best case senario. And still is. My last transplant clinic visit revealed that my labs are perfect. The kidney is working just as it should and so is everything else.

Just before the kidney offer came, as frequent readers of this blog may already know, I was pretty hopeless about every getting a kidney. I was so sensitized, such a hard match, I knew it would be years before I got a kidney. I resigned  myself to a lifetime of dialysis. I was planning future things around a permanent dialysis schedule because I didn't think there would ever be another option. Then the offer came, and everyone proved matches to everyone else, and three weeks later, I was under the knife and my life was being saved. 

I chalk the majority of this new found happiness up to the installation of my new kidney. People can see it too, not just because I look so much better, but because it actually shows on  my face. I had several different people tell me that I "glow" yesterday. You can (apparently) literally see the happiness of having a kidney on my face. It's a different kind of life that I have now as compared to five weeks ago. It's hope for the future, and that hope is translating into happy.

Maybe my kidney came from one of those eternally happy people. You know, the ones who are always happy and optimistic and believe the best in people? They say that transplant patients often can take on the traits of their donors, so maybe that's it.

I also chalk the happiness up to my little Rosie-cat. My dad's only request, nay demand, was that this time I get a cat who likes people. As if I can control that. But I lucked out because she loves the people. All of them. Even the kids who pick her up when she's trying to eat, or sleep, or play and insist on cuddling her. She just gets this look on her face like "Fine. I'll let you carry me around until you put me down and I can go back to what I was doing." We had a surprise party for my mom last Sunday, an event that would have sent any other cat we've ever had under a bed, but Rosie made friends with everyone, letting people she's never met pick her up and pet her. I think the balloon stings helped keep her around, so did the shrimp. Regardless, though, Rosie is making me happy because of her cute little face and companionship and gentile attitude. 

My friend Heather insists that it also has something to do with my "new found love of popular genre fiction". I maintain that just because I love The Hunger Games series doesn't mean I a) love popular genre fiction and b) it's what's making me happy. I told her that I'll admit, it is doing something for me, but I'd only give it 5% of the total happiness quota. Like I told Heather, it can't be making me that happy knowing I'll never find anyone who loves me as much as Peeta loves Katniss. 

Is everything in my life going ideally? Not even close. I still think my chances of ever meeting someone and getting married are quite slim. and the job search seems to be going nowhere fast, and I do still live with my parents, and I turn 30 in October, but like Coldplay says in their song Paradise, "And so lying underneath those stormy skies, she'd say ohhhhhhh I know the sun will set to rise". So for right now, I'm taking the happiness. It may change, in fact I wouldn't be surprised if next week I'm posting something about how people are idiots, but like previously stated, hope is translating into happiness.