It's the little things....that become the big things

Life.....what is it really about?  Do any of us know?  Every day I wake up and I think, today I'm going to do everything right.  I'm going to be happy, and I'm going to be attentive to my children and clean my house until it looks like my mother's.  I'm going to follow the schedule and it's going to be exactly right.  And guess what?  Then I get out of bed.

Life isn't perfect.  I'm not perfect.  Hell, I don't even think I'd be happy with perfection.  My journey over the last 5 years has been a series of realizing what DOES make me happy.  Odd that I have to actually think about it.  It should be natural.  However, I've come to realize that all the things that have been implanted in my brain as things that I should do, and things that I need to have to make me happy are other peoples version of happiness, not mine.  

I grew up wanting to be a wife and a mother---that was it---it was that simple.  That was going to make me happy. So I lived my life waiting...waiting for the day that my dream would be realized and I would be a wife and a mother...I wonder how many things I missed enjoying while waiting for those things to occur.  I was always described as a happy person....but did I really look deep inside myself and think about what would make me happy?  Truly, blissfully happy?  I am a simple person.  I don't need a lot to bring me joy.  But I spent most of my life getting my happiness from making those around me happy.  Noble you might say.  Stupid is more like it.  Because if you allow your happiness to depend on someone or something else, then guess what?  They can take it away.  You can lose them, or the "stuff" you think you need to make you happy.  True happiness is found INSIDE of you....I've learned that.  Now I have to learn to live it----and unlearn everything I've been programmed to believe the last 49 years.  You are invited to come along for the ride.