Saturday, January 23, 2010

Happiness - Is It A State Of Mind?

I've been single for over a decade now and I've had some people asking my folks - and myself - if I'm happy with my life. Personally, I do get a little lonely with my predicament. However, I didn't make it this way. Life hasn't always been fair to me right from the beginning; and being a once bitten twice shy kinda gal didn't make it any easier for me either.

Right from the start I knew I wasn't going to have kids and was most probably going to get hitched (or not at all) very late in life. I knew this when I was in high school... and that's bad. There seemed to be something other girls had that I didn't; and they thought it was a missing 'link' from me. They thought it was a bad thing. However, in my family, we have a lot of people like me. When I was in Home Economics, I knew how to cook, knit and sew already as my family had taught me from a young age.
As time went on, I dated and fell in love and enjoyed a love life; and I also got hurt... badly. It took me a long time to find my happiness. Before I found that it took me longer to realise that I wasn't happy in the first place. And it's not really a state of mind but it's how you can make yourself happy. Does your work make you happy? It doesn't matter if it's paid work or not; sometimes the best and most enjoyable work is where you don't get paid. It builds integrity and dignity.

Being happy is something of a journey though. For me it was. Once I found I wasn't happy, I had to figure out exactly where I had lost it and where I could find it. So, I looked around my house, my family and my garden. I had to start talking to a shrink (for a little while) to get things into perspective. He was really good and understood exactly where I needed to work on my life. I mean, I wasn't the nicest person around at the time; but I still feel like a mural... I'm never going to be finished, well, not yet.
I found that I needed to get online and start looking around at social networking sites and start working on my writing again. That was when I was the happiest; when my brain was engaged in the battles of my books and the worlds I've made up. I needed to do a lot of stuff around the house (and there still is), but I'm working on it room by room, little by little.

In the last few years, I have gotten into the happiest phase of my life I have ever been. I'm happier than before the relationship that hurt me so bad I didn't know what to do. I'm back on track to what I want to do with my life and loving it.

But there's a difference.

I'm not desperately searching for a man to fill a gap. Like I said when I was 15 or so: "...if a man shows up in my life and I want him to stick around, well, it's meant to be..." I'm in no rush to get married or have children. What I am looking for is to be happy with the life I have, to read the books I have collected, make my garden lovely and well-cared for, eat great food, play the piano, listen to some blues and jazz and just plainly enjoy my life for what it is: a journey.

There's no rush to be anywhere or do anything. And I'm getting on with what I'm doing on Bookcrossing , My Reading List and other sites I've taken on such as 365project . All of these are fun places to get into and have a look at. And I'm active in all of them every week.

So, what does happiness mean to you? Are you searching for it or has it found you in one way or another?

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