Happy

Our family’s circumstances stay the same, unemployment, unwell but managing,regular stuff, nothing has changed. There’s been no formal job offer or no magnificent leap in good health.

My husband had skin cancer removed from his eye brow that required several layers scraped off until there no cancer cells were detected.Yes, it was another bump in the road. We both handled that in stride, well done!

 

I guess we are so used to the ups and downs of life that they don’t quite startle us as much as they used to, maybe that’s a good thing. Maybe that’s the lesson that we are supposed to be learning. If it is, it has taught us well. I know we can handle anything thrown our way, I’m not asking to be tested again and again but we have been tested and we haven’t fallen apart or broken down. We have stuck together, even stronger in our bond. It’s comforting to know.

 

Which means, parenthetically, that on the very (very) rare occasion we hear good, actually GREAT news, it feels FANTASTIC yet very, very new and foreign. A feeling that we both haven’t felt in such a long time that it feels brand new. And, yes, we certainly appreciate it more, now more than ever.

 

So, when our son called me, breathless, to tell me he got into medical school,

 

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I was at first, speechless. “What?” I said because I wasn’t sure of what he said. He said it again, slowly, my voice rose two octaves ” WHAT?” I squealed and started shrieking, and felt for the first time that all was good with the world and that I now knew what happiness felt like.

 

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It was brand new and intense and it was a feeling I was not used to. I remember in my mind thinking ‘  so this is happiness’ like bubbles floating inside my head.

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But, it was a feeling that you can’t even imagine or dream about because you can’t wrap your head around that feeling and you certainly don’t remember when you felt like that before.

 

When you are a parent, the size of your joy or sorrow doubles when you have kids. If they hurt, you hurt twice as much. But, hearing the joy in their voice, that is better than anything in the world because you are so much happier for yourself because they are happy. I kept reminding myself of this feeling and still do to remember what happiness felt like. It’s so fleeting like a butterfly dancing by you, a wisp of a thing but if you concentrate, really concentrate you will remember, at least part of the feeling.  HIS joy and your own are inseparable. It’s the mommy quotient.

 

Nothing else has changed; it’s all perspective. I’m trying to remember that. Look at your situation in a different way. Express gratitude. Be happy for all the good things in your life, smile as much as you can even if you don’t feel like it. It makes a difference, I know.

 

 

 

Haiku Horizons, Content

Content life, morning

Coffee, swirling milk angels

Being One with Now.

 

 

 

 

 

In love with food, grace

bellies, content, sugar bombs

lick my lips, linger.

 

 

 

 

Dog lies next to me

Love (Photo credit: Noël Zia Lee)

her paw resting, yawns, content

Leaning on my leg.

 

Plinky Prompt: Happily Ever After?

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  Bride and Groom Toppers (Photo credit: mags20_eb)

  

• “And they lived happily ever after.” Think about this line for a few minutes. Are you living happily ever after? If not, what will it take for you to get there? See all answers

• Edit answer |
• March 18, 2013 by hibernationnow

• Happily Ever After
• Happy Enough.
• “And they lived happily ever after” is why Disney invented movies. You don’t see Jasmine worrying about her unemployment check and obviously Cinderella does alright at the end, marrying her prince. Aladdin doesn’t get laid off from work, ever. But, no one stays in that state of ecstasy of being a newlywed forever. It’s a fantasy. I’ve been married almost twenty-five years. I think that is a wonderful thing. Has it been easy all the time? No. Have we gone through rough patches? Yes. Not everyone wants to work through them, for some it’s just a quickie divorce. Marriage is a serious commitment: to each other and to our children. My husband and I are great friends, we have the same values; we love and like each other. All the time? That makes me laugh. Most of the time? Absolutely. Here’s to (at least) another 25! Congratulations to US!

It’s OK To Be OK

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A friend of mine wrote a post recently about whether she should strive for stardom or just be satisfied with mediocrity, (my very loose translation.) It’s a subject that has been on and off my mind for years and one that I’ve never answered. After reading her very well written blog: (Phylorsblog) I had an answer for myself. I don’t need stardom or unbridled stress like that of a frisky colt rearing up on a smoky ranch. As soon as I decided that writing was for enjoyment and for my blog, I felt lighter, happier and clearer than I have felt for years.

It’s interesting that if I had asked myself the question I probably would have been inundated with anxiety and stress but that didn’t happen. I don’t know what her answer will be to the question she posed but I’m happy with my answer. Everyone dreams of being famous and making a lot of money, I’m content where I am. I used to dream of being “famous” and then realized I liked my anonymity a lot more than being surrounded by strangers, watching and criticizing my every move.

I’m fairly low maintenance, it doesn’t take much to make me happy, I get excited about little things and I tend to amuse myself. I’m definitely child-like and I appreciate my humor even when no one else does; that doesn’t bother me in the least. I’m sometimes too sensitive, true, but it’s who I am. I’m 55 and have less angst today than I did in my twenties; do we have a choice? I choose to not cover the few gray hairs in my brown, curly hair, I feel that I have earned them.

When the snow finally starts to melt and the soggy, mush of ice-water remains, I will hold on, when I can, to try to avoid slipping and falling with my loose bones. Not everything is perfect at 55, but then again, nothing was perfect at any age. I do the best I can each day, sometimes it hurts a little more, sometimes a little less. I’m fine with where I am now, I’m content. That’s as close to happy as I can imagine.

PAIN 11/11/11

I AM convinced that menopause was the catalyst for my getting a thyroid disorder, actually an auto-immune thyroid disorder called Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis and Fibromyalgia which crept in….no, more like, crashed into my body right after menopause and never left. It also changed me from a happy person to a somewhat content person. I am more anxious, I have more fear. If PMS was a wading pool, menopause for me, was like a tsunami.

I had been to doctor after doctor, half of them not having a clue what was wrong with me (including my beloved internist who walked out of the examining room in frustration and left me crying inside, alone.) There was a rheumatologist who said I had “scoliosis” and that my auto-immune disease of the thyroid would leave me “wide open for other auto-immune diseases.” Thanks, really helpful and informative not to mention it scared me half to death. I had another rheumatologist who put me on cymbalta and when it did not help said she could do no more and a maniac rheumatologist who put me on various, toxic medicines that are generally given ONLY to transplant patients so that they don’t reject a new organ. He also let me stay on one particularly noxious medicine that gave me gastrointestinal problems so badly I couldn’t leave my bathroom for a month. When I called him after a month and told him what was happening, he said just “give it another month.” A month later, weak and dehydrated I had an office appointment and he said “my bad, that was my mistake.” YOU THINK?

It’s hard to remember “Before” menopause since I am convinced that menopause and fibromyalgia both robbed me of my memory. What was I saying? Why did I come up here? What did I want to remember? Frankly, its terrifying. I can remember verbatim the words spoken in my husband’s and my first fight but what I did yesterday? Not easy at all. It also robbed me of all the energy I ever had, poured it out of my body with an invisible pump and threw it in a large body of water far away from here. It could be fueling the energy of a little known country for all that I know…..

I consider myself a sick woman now, not a healthy one. My Fibromyalgia flare-ups have been so long and pronounced it’s like they are my new constant. I don’t remember when I didn’t ache in agony. Movement of every kind makes me groan out loud. I’m not asking for sympathy or even help, I am hoping for understanding. Please, just remember, I HURT all the time, whether you believe in this chronic pain disease or not. It is my unhappy life, not yours; do not judge. I don’t complain to you, so please don’t offer suggestions. If I want your opinion, truly, I will ask for it. You have NO idea what I go through so don’t even think about saying “you know how I feel.” Trust me, you don’t.

My Boredom Cures

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Books, Movies, TV, Blogging, Music, Writing, Computer, Books…..Still bored after all those options? Get a grip! I’m generally not bored, and I’m generally not fussy. I’ve always been able to occupy my “alone” time. In childhood, our mom said I was happy to play in my room all by myself but that my older sister needed to be entertained all the time. I see that with my own children now: my oldest child needs to be entertained and my second born is more content and doesn’t mind alone time (though she probably wouldn’t admit to it). Maybe it has to do with birth order.  The first-born child does get undivided attention, where us second born (or babies) have never known anything else except sharing. We’ve never had undivided attention. Maybe it’s a coping mechanism or just maybe we are more content. Or it’s simply a personality issue. Alone time, to me, doesn’t mean I’m bored, it means I’m comfortable with myself.