When . . ..

We tell ourselves "I'll be happy when . . . ."

I lose 15 pounds . . . .

    Fall in love . . . .

      Get a raise . . . . 

         Get married . . . . 

Why wait? Why not allow happiness NOW, right now, this very second? 

Why must we put conditions on our happiness? Do we put conditions on our sadness?

"I'll be sad when . . . . "

   I'm home alone and can cry without anyone seeing me . . .  

      The kids are asleep and don't hear my grief  . . . . 

         He's done packing his stuff and has left . . . . 

I guess we do place conditions, on all of it. 

We have lost our ability to just feel unless there is an event connected to it. We have lost our connections with life. 

I am re-learning this. I am learning to just sit still and smile, for no reason. To be happy even in the middle of chaos. And the chaos suddenly just turns into a minor issue, easily resolved. 

Because of this one key thing: My happiness isn't connected to smaller jeans, a wedding ring, a fatter paycheck. It's a part of myself I have found that was always there. That's the weird part. I have always had this ability, to just . . . . BE . . . . I just forgot. 

Look at children, before we teach them otherwise. Look at their pure joy just at waking up, sitting alone, listen to their laughter. 

We've forgotten how simple it is. Life helped us forget how simple it is. 

I had to remember this or I would have ended up living my life with a constant struggle for the "next thing". My happiness couldn't be connected to what I had because in one brief second of my life, I lost it all. All the things I connected to my joy. 

My mom . . . . 

   My first love . . . . 

     My cousin . . . . 

       My faith . . . . 

         My income . . . . 

I had to search within myself because it was all I had left and I discovered something beautiful. I discovered myself and my own connection to the world around me. And I learned one amazing truth: I was responsible for the CHOICE to be happy or not. It was a CHOICE. A choice! 

I had to lose everything I depended, be stripped bare with nothing to anchor me. I had to be lost first. 

I had to fight for a while, walk away for a while, had to cry even longer. 

I had to be ME for a while, just me. 

Not me plus one . . . .

    Not me, someone's daughter . . . . 

       Not me, untouched by tragedy . . . 

            Not me . . . insert ABC religion here 

                Not me, employee of X Corporation . . . . 

Just me. Just Michelle. 

And the joy that I have found, regardless of my life, status, job, relationship status. Those just add to it, not create it. 

I found happiness in the midst of nothing and now I believe that's the way it was meant to be.