choosing happiness

The past couple of weeks have been hard for me. Rather, I've made them hard for myself. There seem to be good reasons to be in a funk -- Gary is still away, working, six days a week; the economic crisis has so many implications and we appear powerless to do much about it; my local unschooling group isn't seeing as many families at outings as have joined us online; a home across the street was robbed yesterday, sometime around 8 or 9 am, no less! Plenty of 'reasons' to be worried and stressed, leaving me feeling very out of sorts.

What to do about it? Well, I know I can choose to be happy even when not everything is as I'd like things to be. I've done it before. I can fake it til I feel it, which sometimes works. I can choose to look at my life, to smile at my children, to enjoy the sunshine and blue sky, I can think of Gary even when he's not home and know that I am loved.

Along the way I stumble across reasons to be happy and grateful for all I have -- even when it's not exactly the way I'd like it.

We live in a house that meets our needs for comfort and safety, even with an increase in the mortgage and too many legos on the floor.

Our children are happy, healthy and full of energy. They laugh at the most silly and simple things. Our house is filled with more joy and laughter than my own childhood had.

I have wonderful, amazing friends who really understand me -- and they still like me!

So why is it such a challenge for me to really embrace joy and happiness? To sit with it and feel truly happy and at peace for more than a few minutes? I'm doing my best to get to those answers, walking through the unhappy moments. After all, I don't have to be happy each moment to have a joyful life. I want to be happy overall, tho.

I got a bit closer today, as I woke thinking about how to be happier today, how to reach the end of my day feeling like it was well-spent -- no, even better, that it was well-enjoyed, that I really did spend my day grateful for and celebrating the good I have.

What came to me is that, while I can choose to be happy with less than I had plans for, less than I ideally want, somewhere inside myself, I struggle with feeling like I want it known -- on record, as it were -- that while I made the best of it, this wasn't my plan. I feel like I need people to know I wanted more.

Is that really what I want tho -- to be acknowledged as some tragic soul who wanted more but was denied it? Who figured out a way to make the best of it and sometimes to be grateful and express joy, despite life not being what I planned? What does that do for me, really?

Let's see...

it might relieve me of responsibility for making my own joy, claiming my own happiness,

it might just garner some sympathy from others, more likely, tho it will only garner pity and resentment from folks who say 'why is she so bitter?' (shades of my mother, definitely)

it certainly distracts me from embracing each moment as it comes into my life, from truly being happy right now,

most unforgivable of all, in my book (and this is my book, yes?), it lets 'them' win... let's who win? lack, frustration, disappointment, all those who've said 'you'll see -- life's not always what you want it to be'

Yes, not letting them win may seem like a poor motivation, but it's been a guiding force for me. Sometimes it's good force. It reinforces my determination to keep walking when I could just sit down and give up. Other times, it's not really helpful because it can become a rallying cry for a battle, when I'd be better off just walking away and letting go. Who cares if it looks like 'they' won? When I find my joy then I'm the one who wins the day.

Still, tho, why this frustration with choosing to be happy with less than ideal conditions? I'm beginning to see it's really about fear and distrust. Fear that if I smile and find a way to be happy with now (while still holding hope for more of what I want at some time) others will stop trying; will think I'm happy enough so there's no point in helping me have more. Distrust that the universe really has any good to offer me. Doubt that I have any right to expect as much good as I want. A little anger that others appear to have all they want -- at least they have things that I'd like to have -- while what I want feels like such a struggle. And a measure of petulance that it's not supposed to be this hard.

And, really, is 'my plan' better than what I do have right now?

I have a wonderful husband who loves me, friends who understand me, beautiful healthy kids who love me (I am still daily awed by how much my kids love me. I don't know why it still surprises me after 23 yrs, but it does. Who ever knew I'd be so valued?) We live in a house that meets our needs, in a city we all consider absolutely home, with wonderful fall weather all around me.

Really, how could I choose not to be happy? And that's my epiphany - every time I deny myself the right to be happy and joyous right here, right now, I'm actively choosing NOT to be happy.

So, in this moment, to quote a friend I love, whose path is recently much more rock-strewn than my own ~~ "I want to be happy. So I am."

Then today this quotation showed up in my email box, and it was such a good reminder for me:

We act as though comfort and luxury were the chief requirements of life, when all that we need to make us really happy is something to be enthusiastic about." ~Charles Kingsley

But even more, I can choose to be enthusiastic about even the most ordinary things.