Redefining Happiness
I've spent so much time working on my story that I forgot to journal. So, I'm catching up today. My subject: redefining happiness.
I've had good and bad days recently. I've had days were I've been terrified of the future. So many things have changed and I feel alone most of the time. I'm still getting used to coming home to a somewhat empty house. Still getting used to having all the bills on my shoulder. Still getting used to not seeing the love of my life. So much has changed, but one thing hasn't: Happiness is still out there. I've just got to learn to redefine it.
In the past, happiness was spending time with my husband. Happiness was about planning our future. I remember going to work and being happy that I was going home to my husband at the end of the day. Sometimes he would surprise me and meet me at work, impressing all the women when he would bring flowers. Sometimes he would surprise me and take me out to dinner when I got home. Somehow he always knew how to put a smile on my face.
I remember when I was losing my sight, and wanting to get out of nursing school. I told him I just wanted to come home and look at a flower. I told him I no longer wanted to spend my days watching the sick and dying in hospitals and that it was just too much for me. He told me to do what would make me happy. So I quit. I remember coming home after I dropped out, feeling like a failure. I walked into the house, tired and dejected and found a dozen red roses just waiting for me. My husband had remembered how I told him I just wanted to look at a flower. And now he'd given me a dozen flowers.
It made me so happy and blessed to have a man like that.
But now, how do I find that sort of happiness again. It's not something you just go out and buy. You can't just find it in another man. I think the answer is in me. Happiness is a state of mind. It's there with us each day. But first we have to learn to see it. And that is my greatest problem right now. I can't see it. I'm so busy thinking about the past, and the happiness that was once mine. How can anything that happens to me equal that? Sure, I smile every now and then. And sometimes I really think I am happy. But then, I realize I'm really not. I usually realize this when I'm sitting down, finishing off a pie or a cake. Looking for happiness in food, but it's not there. Instead, I've got to learn to redefine happiness.
So that is my challenge over the next year. Redefine happiness and put it back in my life on a consistent basis. It is a mounumental task.
I've had good and bad days recently. I've had days were I've been terrified of the future. So many things have changed and I feel alone most of the time. I'm still getting used to coming home to a somewhat empty house. Still getting used to having all the bills on my shoulder. Still getting used to not seeing the love of my life. So much has changed, but one thing hasn't: Happiness is still out there. I've just got to learn to redefine it.
In the past, happiness was spending time with my husband. Happiness was about planning our future. I remember going to work and being happy that I was going home to my husband at the end of the day. Sometimes he would surprise me and meet me at work, impressing all the women when he would bring flowers. Sometimes he would surprise me and take me out to dinner when I got home. Somehow he always knew how to put a smile on my face.
I remember when I was losing my sight, and wanting to get out of nursing school. I told him I just wanted to come home and look at a flower. I told him I no longer wanted to spend my days watching the sick and dying in hospitals and that it was just too much for me. He told me to do what would make me happy. So I quit. I remember coming home after I dropped out, feeling like a failure. I walked into the house, tired and dejected and found a dozen red roses just waiting for me. My husband had remembered how I told him I just wanted to look at a flower. And now he'd given me a dozen flowers.
It made me so happy and blessed to have a man like that.
But now, how do I find that sort of happiness again. It's not something you just go out and buy. You can't just find it in another man. I think the answer is in me. Happiness is a state of mind. It's there with us each day. But first we have to learn to see it. And that is my greatest problem right now. I can't see it. I'm so busy thinking about the past, and the happiness that was once mine. How can anything that happens to me equal that? Sure, I smile every now and then. And sometimes I really think I am happy. But then, I realize I'm really not. I usually realize this when I'm sitting down, finishing off a pie or a cake. Looking for happiness in food, but it's not there. Instead, I've got to learn to redefine happiness.
So that is my challenge over the next year. Redefine happiness and put it back in my life on a consistent basis. It is a mounumental task.
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