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. 

Flowers

I've been thinking of you a lot lately and I feel the longing intensify. It always does when my life is going through a change. I've decided I'm bringing you flowers for Christmas. I have yet to take you flowers. It also made me wonder: 

Why didn't I do that when you were alive?

I don't remember taking you flowers except for the childish bouquets when I was a little girl. The excitement I felt at the treasure I had found, wanting to share it with you. 

Why did I ever stop?

Sometimes, I wonder if I close my eyes enough, wish hard enough, if somehow, through enough wanting, if I could have just one more moment with you. Just . . . one . . . . more. 

I still hate talking to a stone and wondering if you can hear. I still have too many questions and uncertainties of what the after life holds to wonder if you can hear me. Guess it depends on who I talk to on whether you can or not. I'd like to think you do, but a part of me doubts it because if you can hear me, why can't I hear you anymore? What a cruel trick of time, the forgetting. 

It shouldn't be that way. If I had any say in it, your voice would get stronger, your image imprinted of my mind forever, as if you were there.

Maybe the powers that be believe that the forgetting helps with healing. I disagree. The forgetting makes me feel worse. What does it say about a person when they forget? I don't see it as healing, just moving on.

But how much moving on must I do to be "healthy" and yet still hold on to you? 

So I write these letters, hoping to make sense of that which confuses me. 

Sometimes, I wonder if you are here, in your own way, whatever way that is, reading over my shoulder. Such a silly thought for such a logical person. 

You'd be proud of me, I think, at how I am slowly allowing myself to be illogical in my life and yet how completely sane and logical I feel in the middle of it all. 

Yet, here I am, writing you a letter you can never read because a small part of me hopes that you can. That I hope (and would never readily admit) that each keystroke somehow reaches you, wherever you are: Heaven, the ground, somewhere in between. Guess it depends on which pastor I listen to that week, which book I read.

That's the part you'd hate right now, my doubts and wonderings. But I was never like you in that regard: the absolute, unwavering faith. I question too much, everything, always have. But that's the part of me I love the most. 

I've grown into a woman the past few years, some due to natural progression, some due to shoving. I feel the selfishness of who I used to be falling away and being replaced with a love for life and others that I never imagined. I am letting my life be led more by my heart and less by my mind. 

So I'll bring you flowers and try to forgive myself for not doing it when it counted. I guess, right now, it's more for me, than you. But I'm sure you'd understand and love them anyway, if you can even see them. 

My heart aches today; aches too much for all I have to do. What I'd give for a day to grieve, without interruption. My life is too fast paced for that; I make it too fast paced. It's easier that way; except when it's not. Except for the times when the busyness makes me feel trapped. 

I guess it's up to me to create the time; the time to feel and grieve. But opening up that door, the door I finally inched shut. I don't really think I'm ready to open it again. 

So for now, I'll accept the few moments I had to open up to you and well, until we meet again . . . 

I love you.