Happiness

Happiness is a form of courage. ~Holbrook Jackson

These are some random thoughts on happiness. I can't find a way to tie them together so I'm just putting them out there.

Choosing to be happy
Through low moments over the past several months, Juan Carlos has sometimes asked me if this is how things were going to be from now on. Though this particular comment/question has generally not been helpful at the time, he has provoked a lot of thinking about happiness, about feelings and about choices. When should a person let themselves feel sad and mourn and when does it turn into unproductive sadness, self-pity and depression? When are feelings just feelings and when can we turn feelings into attitudes or choices?

Happiness inspires happiness
I got together with a friend from high school over the weekend for coffee. I was telling her about our daughter and that we named her Angelica Grace. She started telling me about how she thought she wanted to name her daughter, if she has one, after one of her sister's friends, Abbey, because Abbey was always so happy. Why not name a baby after someone who is so contagiously happy? She told me other people have named their children after Abbey too, even after meeting her for just one day. This really made an impression on me. How neat that a person's attitude or demeanor would inspire someone so much.

Happiness and humility
I've been thinking about accepting suffering quietly as opposed to making it a public affair. Sometimes I see people ooing and ahhing over pregnant women and new babies and have this urge to bring up Angelica and how she's not here and make people remember her. Of course, it always seems so awkward that I never have actually done that, but I've questioned this urge and what I would be trying to gain from it. Is it a need for recognition? For myself? For her? Is it a desire to be reaffirmed, to have my grief reaffirmed- to be assured that her life was real and my grief is justified? Is it just to break the deafening silence surrounding her death, where no one says anything because no one knows what to say and life goes on as if it were all normal when, for me, everything has changed and everything hasn't at the same time.

It's easier to be sad
I wonder sometimes what attracts me to grief and sadness, why I dwell on the "what ifs" and "what would have/should have been" and think about all the ways I'm alone or different or hurting. Am I looking for comfort? Am I comfortable in sadness and grief, whereas trying to be happy would somehow be some sort of risk? I'm not sure what I would be risking exactly- perhaps being disappointed, but dwelling in sadness I already am disappointed.

Happiness as courage
The quote at the top of the blog struck me today, as if someone else understood what it feels like to not have happiness as the "default" but rather as a very intentional step towards something greater. I understand the value of happiness, its contagiousness, what it can do for my life and the people around me, but for me, happiness does require a kind of "courage", a kind of faith, a stepping out into the "unknown." I find myself asking "What would happen if I chose to be happy? If I chose to look at the bright side, to count my blessings? What am I so afraid to lose? Would people think I had a perfect life? That I didn't suffer? That things weren't hard for me? What if they did fail to recognize my happiness as a difficult but intentional choice? Why am I scared of that?

Happiness as security
In spite of whatever may be "scary" to me about happiness, it also, ironically, would seem to provide the kind of security I have always sought throughout my life, allowing me to say I can find happiness in my present circumstances, regardless of what happens, making me open to an unknown future but not scared of it, because I have the inner wisdom to know "it will all be ok". It may not be the way I would have it or want it, but I am only a worker, not the master builder.

Looking ahead
Maybe this is the hardest thing I will ever have to go through and maybe this is just preparing me for worse things yet to come. I cannot know- all I know is fighting "what is" and wishing for "what's not" is getting me nowhere. I have to try another approach. With the beautiful sun shining after weeks of rain, promising spring, hope, and new life for the world around me, I can't think of a better time than the present to be thankful and step with courage into a better place, a life of happiness.