Author: Kelsey Mihachik

I started going to therapy nine months ago because I wasn’t quite sure what made me happy. And I’m thrilled to report that I still don’t know, since I’ve sidetracked all of my sessions so far with conversations about boys (*shrugs in Kevin James*). But now that I have less to talk about on the boy front – or maybe it’s that I’m growing sick of talking about them – we are back to square one!

The obvious place to start is, “Well, what do you like to do?” which has only really increased my concern around this search. Because the truth is, I don’t really like to do anything. I run twenty miles each week and read two books every month… does that mean I like running and reading? I mean, I’d rather waste away in front of a TV rewatching It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia and scooping port wine cheese onto Wheat Thins. Or playing the Playstation 2 games I stole from my brother and brought to Minnesota. But I don’t do that, because I would feel like a loser. And I’d get depressed from not working out and staying hot. And generally not amounting to things, as it were.

Ideally the older you get, the less things there are to struggle towards. As weird as it sounds, maybe it’s the lack of struggle that’s got me feeling so unhappy. Like… I have a cool job, in a fun city, with a nice apartment and a newish car, awesome friends & family back home in New England, and good health. It’s hard to envision ‘what’s next’ when I don’t necessarily want more than what I already have. But if I’m so content, why don’t I feel it? When I was moving city to city, I always felt like I was advancing to the next level – especially because I got to say, “I work for Bud Light,” or, “I work for the Seahawks.” And even though I wouldn’t paint my lifestyle in Saint Paul full of glitz and glamour, choosing to settle down here does feel a little like I’ve finally outgrown playing that game. Like I don’t feel the need to level up anymore. And as a result, I’m just aimlessly living life. I know down the road there will be new ‘games’ like designing a house or building a family. Those things just aren’t for me right now.

One time I asked my boyfriend, “Do you ever feel like this? Do you ever get this feeling of ‘What’s it all for?'” and he simply said, “No.” And when I think back to that answer, I am immediately filled with rage and reminded of why he is a recurring topic in therapy. However, I can’t help but admire someone living happily and throwing caution to the wind – even if he’s constantly listening to Barstool podcasts while doing so. At the end of the day, maybe I’d just be happier if I just didn’t think so much about being happy. Kind of like an old school dad with a Boston accent saying, “You’re not fuckin’ depressed,” which is low-key sometimes what a depressed person needs to hear so they can buck up and pull themselves out of it.

I’m not a fan of the Seahawks organization. But I am endlessly grateful that they gave me the opportunity to go from ‘brand side’ to ‘team side.’ Plus, there are tons of great humans and friends who work there: one of whom wrote this article only three days ago. It talks about a saying they ironically adopted right before I left:

“We used to call it, what’s next? Mike calls it chasing edges, but literally ever since Pete and I came through the door in 2010, it was constantly harping on, ‘What are you doing to get better every day?'”

I think I’m a person who’s compelled to chase edges. Being happy isn’t about simply doing more of the things I like to do – it’s about chasing an edge. It’s about being able to look back and go, “I improved this a little bit, I’m proud of what I did to get better in this small way,” even if I was unhappy doing some of the work that got me there. Contrary to everyone’s beliefs, I don’t usually ooze happiness by paying thousands of dollars in lease breaks and packing all my belongings into a moving pod. But I’m happy looking back on it and going, “That was a big accomplishment.”

So maybe I’m not unhappy after all right now, just uncomfortable. And not to stretch a metaphor, but maybe what’s making me so uncomfortable is that I’ve chased every edge that I can within the square I’m used to being in. I could chase a $200K salary. I could chase driving a Maserati in Miami instead of a Trailblazer in the Midwest. I could chase being 105 pounds and 10% body fat. But I don’t really care to. Maybe I just need to find a different square.

What matters most is that, here in this blog, I successfully verbalized what does make me happy. Which means I can once more utilize therapy for boys.

Okay, that’s not what matters most. I just want to end by saying: if you ever feel the way I do… Like you’re down and out thinking about, “What’s next?”… I do believe that it’s a gift. This thing that feels like unhappiness isn’t actually that. And it’s going to drive you to chase your next edge. Because looking back, you know it always has. And how special is it that your happiness comes – not from a quick fix hobby like running or reading – but from actually achieving your goals?

Footnote: because setting the image for this post has me feeling sentimental. Special thanks to Ralph, who paid $60 for Spiro: the Reignited Trilogy on his Playstation 5, so that I could play at his house while he ignores me for sports.

I haven’t blogged in a very long time. I just opened my random Word document of potential topics to talk about in said blog. And now for my greatest trick of all, I will attempt to mold them together into some form of cohesiveness: therefore allowing me to start anew and reclaim my entitlement to blogging. In the next post. After you read all the drivel I had saved up.

In preparation for the new season of The Rehearsal, I was watching (at the time, pre-“Miracle Over the Mojave”) the season prior in case I needed to be up to speed for any callbacks. In one episode, there’s a trivia woman who blogs under the alias, “Cheap Chick in the City.” Nathan mentions how she hadn’t posted anything in over a year, which felt a little personal to me as a fall-off blogger myself. I think I fear exactly what Nathan outed this woman out for… Like people will judge me and think, “Ope! Kelsey hasn’t blogged in a while, she must not be as motivated as she used to be.” When really my only purpose for blogging is just to prove to myself that I continue to exist and that I’m still capable of self-reflection.

I also believe typing out my thoughts sharpens my ability to call upon four syllable words when I need them in my everyday life. For example, a couple months ago my downstairs neighbor was hitting her ceiling (my floor) with a broom, because apparently I walk too heavily on my feet: a sentiment I came to learn when she wrote me a Christmas card that explained how upset she was. Anyways, we had to back-and-forth a bit with the leasing office on the matter. And in an email I wrote, “If they are so CONTEMPTUOUS about living underneath me then maybe they should move to another unit.” No less than 3 days later, I found myself using the same word in a work conversation! The keyboard giveth and taketh.

But most of all, I like to blog because at the end I get to choose a meme that goes with the post – which in turn gets promoted on my Instagram Story and allots me credibility in the internet humor department.

I suppose I can’t relate to my downstairs neighbor because, in college, my roommate Pavlovian trained me to fall asleep and wake up according to the on/off setting on her desk fan. So contrastingly, I am unable to hear anything going on in my neighboring units when it’s time to settle in for bedtime. In order to be comfortable, I must have a wind turbine fan on HIGH and a white noise machine blasting simultaneously. And if I sleep away from home where there are no fan systems, I have to keep the Fan App open directly next to my head. The only advantage to this learned behavior is that – when Pavlov and I were both bridesmaids in our other college roommates’ wedding – we stayed together in the Air BnB and said “Double fan apps!” in the tone of Stepbrothers‘ “Good Housekeeping!” which is a core memory of happiness for me to this day.

[Deletes from the Word document: a couple paragraphs about fast food habits I had in college, plus mourning the Onion Bagel which is no longer offered at Dunkin’ Donuts.] We are now down to two pages left of topics.

[Skips over mention of movies I used to rent from the video store with my mom as a kid: one of which included Rockadoodle – which was basically Space Jam, but about a chicken that played music.] Make it one page.

I can’t seem to find regular rolls of Bounty paper towels at Target. They’re all ‘mega rolls’ that are ‘3 rolls in 1’. One time I accidentally bought those, and the rolls wouldn’t even fit on my paper towel holder. WHY do toilet paper and paper towels companies always have to be like “Ultra is 8 rolls in 2, but Mega 12 rolls in 4!” It’s like, how did we stray so far from the standardized paper towel roll size? I don’t know what any of this stuff is equal to anymore, and I’m scared.

[Lacks a smooth transition.]

I despise Free Stuff Piles. And I especially despise the people who create them – leaving a note and acting like it’s some noble deed they’re doing. No one needs your printer. We all print things at work. And you’re only putting it in a box with other random junk because it doesn’t fit down our trash chute and you’re too lazy to dispose of it properly. Not to mention, the box is a Sketchers Memory Foam shoe box, which you also didn’t want to break down or put in recycling. And now it’s sitting on that $30 Essentials by Target end table – the same one you couldn’t manage to sell on Facebook Marketplace.

Despite my above-mentioned complaints, I’m actually very non-confrontational. When it comes to fight or flight, I’ve always been a flight girly. And I don’t think that’s cowardly as much as it is less effort. I always think about how, if I found myself in a Walking Dead or Batman-type plot, I’d probably just flee the city. You can’t tell me that you wouldn’t move out of Gotham if there’s THREE movies about the terrorism happening there. I don’t care if Christian Bale is hot, the rent is probably high and my apartment is probably going to get blown up. I’m gone after Batman Begins.

But sometimes I exhibit fight tendencies! I recently told someone at work that if one of our colleagues sends me an ‘Invitation to Connect’ on LinkedIn but has never talked to me in person, I neither accept or deny the request and instead let it marinate. The response I got was, “So you’re holding them hostage…” and I thought that was a pretty cool way of putting it.

Future entries coming soon to a phone screen near you.