Happy, as defined by Mirriam-Webster: “feeling pleasure and enjoyment because of your life situation, etc.; showing or causing feelings of pleasure and enjoyment; pleased or glad about a particular situation, event, etc.”
The question was asked of me yesterday as we talked about whether we thought our parents were happy. I’ve been thinking about my mom, as I do especially this time of year, and I wondered if she was a happy person on the inside. We had a unique relationship, she and I, but I wonder now how well I really knew her. My mother was never one to talk about her true feelings whereas I am blabbering all over the place. Oh, she let her displeasure show when she was totally unhappy. I know there were many times when she was happy. But do I see her as a happy person? No.
I look back now at her life. Oh, she was happy when others were around. She was happy doing particular things like playing games, bottle hunting, coin finding at the beach, and spending time with family. But deep inside, I don’t see her as a happy person. It was like she needed other people and things to make her happy. When she was alone, she was miserable… I think. But do I really know for sure?
“Dad wasn’t happy, either,” Don said.
I think back about him. That’s true, too. I’d never thought of that. Is it just because we don’t look at our parents that way when we are young? My parents certainly did not talk about their feelings to us kids. My mom and I would talk when I was older, but she held back even then, I know she did. She held secrets. Dad must have held secrets. (After all, he talked less than Ma). Was it to protect us?
“Can anyone ever be truly happy?” Don asked as we continued to talk about our lives.
“I’m happy!” was my immediate response. I took him by surprise. I don’t come across as being happy. “It’s not about a laughing and joking kind of happy,” I explained because that is not me. That is not my definition of happy.
I consider myself a happy person on the inside. I make being happy a conscious choice. Yes, there are many times I am not happy. There is the grief and loneliness, the issues with self-exile as I live my solitary life to devote to writing and art, the frustrating life issues that need to be handled, and such. Inside I choose to be a mostly-happy person, but there are days when I am ornery and sometimes I just go with it and celebrate that orneriness. I use these times to explore the hows and whys and what makes my mind work the way it does. (This is an exciting journey in itself, like charting an unknown course. It’s almost like exploring the unhappy parts of my life makes me happy because it is giving me understanding of myself.) And, in spite of even this, I see myself as a happy-inside person.
I think about what makes me happy. Happy for me is not the party world. It’s not the adrenaline excitement experiences. Happy for me is an inner feeling of content. It’s living the life I want. (I don’t know if, when I was young, I could have made that statement because when you have to work jobs you don’t like to make ends meet… then again, happiness is a state of mind, an attitude. It took me a long time to understand this.)
Happy, for me, is seeing the beauty around me. (I adapted a Native American saying of “Walk in beauty every day.”) Happiness is being able to look out the window at nature, birds, critters, etc. It’s having great conversations with family and friends. It’s being caught up in creativity or when ideas gush forth from a bubbling fountain and I try to write them all down – it’s like chasing butterflies and dragonflies to get them to stay still long enough to take pictures.
Happiness is burying myself at home for a few days as I’m caught up in the latest writing endeavor (or book). It’s having the opportunity to travel, even if only a day trip, and visiting places and learning about the history of the area. It’s getting out a drawing board and supplies and putting shapes and pictures to a blank slate.
Is happiness about a perfect life? No, there is no such thing as a perfect life. I say, “I’m perfect at being imperfect.” Happiness is a state of mind, an attitude, a choice. I choose to be happy! And on those days when things are not going so well I will try to find a way to make good from that.
We all make choices in how we live our lives. Our parents chose how to live their lives. I can’t live with any regret. There wasn’t anything I could have done that would have made a different. I am choosing to live a happy life. Yes, it has taken a lifetime to get here, but I am satisfied.
What makes you happy?
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