Happiness

What is happiness? We can all name one happy moment, or perhaps the most happy moment in our lifetime, but consider this, were those moments merely external snapshots of the greater experience of happiness that lies deep within? Inside each and every one of us is the answer—we alone hold the key. We make a conscious choice every day about how we are going to live...happy, sad, joyous, hopeless, indifferent. 

I have chosen for a very long time to live for someone else. I have been the rock, the foundation, the glue, the constant that has held a family together for years. I have sacrificed my happiness again and again in order to do the right thing, but there has to come a time when you say, I'm sorry, but I've had enough. It's time for me to experience my happiness. It's time for me to stand on my own, really stand on my own for the first time in my life and I'm absolutely fine with that. More than fine. I will look for that silver lining for I am the eternal optimist. I will find my happiness. I have faith in that. I have hope...always hope.

A Gift

Leo Buscaglia wrote..."Love is always bestowed as a gift...freely, willingly, and without expectation. It is offered even when not acknowledged or appreciated. We don't love to be loved, we love to love."

I read those words and think...that is me. You know, when you've gifted your heart away a few times and had it flattened with a meat tenderizer, or had it gasping for air because it was being held on to too tightly, or it was simply forgotten about and neglected, then why in the world would you ever do it again? I read those three sentences and I know why. Love should always be given freely. When you love someone you are giving a gift—a gift to them as well as to yourself. Love should never come with conditions or expectations. Love is not a contract between two people it is a union of souls. Finding that one person in all the world whose soul mirrors your very own is a rare thing I believe. Lucky are those who gift their hearts to one another and treasure that gift for a lifetime. My hopeful heart tells me anything is possible.

It's Time

Knowing who you are and what you want from life can either be a blessing or a curse. It takes courage to live life honestly...right from the heart. I am learning what nerves of steel really means. Sometimes it feels like I may buckle under the strain of the circumstances in my life, but somehow I keep moving...keep stepping forward, as if a gentle hand is nudging me on. Hope is a small glowing ember burning in my soul waiting for the winds of change to slowly fan the delicate coal to life. It's the very thing that keeps me going every day—hope.

It's time for me to be stronger than I ever imagined I could be. It's time for me to step out on my own for the first time in many, many years. It's time for me to cast away doubt and fear, and embrace life. It's time for me to let go of the past as I look toward the future. It's time for me to jump in with both feet and accept all the happiness and love that the Universe has waiting for me. It's time....

The Power of Music

Music is a powerful thing. Everyone likes music—at least that's what I assume, but for some of us, music is as much a part of daily life as breathing. For people like us, one simple song can flood the heart and touch the soul, stirring a cauldron of emotions within. You can be changed forever by a song. I remember the song playing on the radio echoing through the empty house where I grew up, the day we moved out...Eye in the Sky by the Alan Parsons Project. R.E.M's Murmur was in the cassette deck of my 1983 Ford Escort the night I lost my virginity. I cried all the way home. Annie's Song by John Denver makes me believe in a love that will last forever—how lucky we would be to find someone who evokes that depth of emotion.

I very nearly had a singing career, but for whatever reason, God had other plans for me. I still sing every day. I sing for myself, I sing for my girls, and I used to kick ass at the local sports bar on Karaoke night. Small potatoes for a girl who has been on stage in Nashville. My love for country music is bittersweet. It's all I used to listen to until I got burned by the industry. I find myself softening to it again though. Country music has some of the most beautiful, meaningful lyrics in all the world. It feels like coming home after being away on a very long journey. I am thankful to have had it brought back into my life.

Music is divine. It touches the soul, it lifts you up, it brings you to tears. Music is a common thread that binds us all in the end, whether you feel a passion for it or not. True music lovers feel it...we feel it...way deep down in our very being. It is a part of who we are. Take away our music, and you take away the very air we breathe. Yes, music is a powerful thing indeed.

Finding My Wings

I wish I could adequately emote my feelings into words today. Days are passing quickly, decisions need to be made—it's time to move on. My life right now feels like waking from a dream in an unfamiliar room, in pitch black darkness, fumbling for the door that will surely bring the light. Half of me feels like a small child wanting to stand still and scream until someone comes and opens that door for me. The other half urges me to be brave, to be calm in the darkness, so that I can find my way to the door and open it myself. In doing so I will give my spirit the gift of knowing that I can survive anything. I have survived many challenges in life that would have felled lesser women. I am strong, stubborn, willful, and independent. Although not bad traits to possess, I can see now that they have held me back in recent years from achieving my own happiness. So, now I'm going to use those traits that kept me grounded, and I'm going to find my wings. 

Knowing

The silence in this house is deafening. Once again, I am alone with my thoughts...a writers dream...to have a head full of material and a blank page to fill. Only, there is so much going on in here that I am having a hard time with any kind of sustained train of thought. My inner thoughts all a buzz sound like a crowded restaurant on a Saturday night, or a dive bar with bad Karakoe blaring away in the background. I haven't been sleeping well. The thoughts never rest, which consequently means I'm not getting rest. They just tumble around up there like a load of wet tennis shoes in the dryer...it's taking it's toll, believe me. I look like hell. I'll bet I've aged ten years in the last two weeks. 

When I am unable to sleep, I climb into bed with one of my daughters. Last night it was my oldest; she has a birthday tomorrow. I watched as she slept peacefully, and I wondered what it is she dreams about. I gently traced the outline of her beautiful face and whispered...I love you. Sometimes you just have to have faith in yourself that you are doing what is best, and that Love is strong enough to overcome any circumstance. I have to trust that I have done well thus far in preparing them for life. Still—I am scared. Their happiness is paramount, and I know the months ahead will put that to the test. My situation is not unique, sadly. I have been where my children are, although, I was much younger. I know from my own experience that they will be just fine. I have to trust that. They are after all much stronger and wiser than I ever was. 

I know the time will come when the constant hum of the thoughts in my head will subside. I know blessed slumber will find me eventually. I know that someday the warmth of my heart will return the glow to my face. I know that everyone deserves abundant happiness in their life. I know...we will all be just fine.

Green Tree, Singing Bird

There is a Chinese proverb that says, keep a green tree in your heart and perhaps a singing bird will come. 

Well, through all of life's difficulties that sage advice is hard to follow. Maintaining a positive attitude, being optimistic about your circumstances, having hope for the future, all seem impossible when making tough, life changing decisions. Inversely, I do have faith, that I will survive this. Using my God given free will I am making a choice for change, and as we all know change is uncomfortable as hell. I have no idea what is in store for me. None. I am more scared than I have ever been in my adult life, but somewhere in my soul I know I am going to be just fine. So, I will do the only thing I know how to do, put one foot in front of the other and keep breathing. Hopefully, my green tree will be strong and beautiful enough one day to attract that singing bird and there will once again be a song in my heart.

Absolute Solitude

Today I feel as alone in the world as I have ever felt. Loneliness has new meaning for me this moment...it is tangible and alive, a living breathing entity doing its best to swallow me whole. The house is dark, eerily still and quiet. There is no sound, no T.V., no stereo, nothing. Even the dogs are silent. There is only the sound of my beating heart, and my slow deliberate breaths. I wonder how I am able to breathe at all. My soul must be keeping my body alive and moving for this pain would surely have killed me by now. It is hard being an emotional wreck and having to bury the grief for the sake of watchful, perceptive, innocent eyes. It is hard to think about life changes and the road ahead. It is hard listening to your head argue with your heart. Life is hard. Life is not fair. This I know for certain, I cannot stop my soul from longing any more than I could stop the tide from rolling in. It is as much a part of me right now as the absolute solitude I feel all the way down to the core of my being.

Longings

What do you do when you wake up in the morning and feel empty—like a fragile shell that could shatter into a million pieces at the slightest breath of air. My heart aches today with actual physical pain that spreads throughout my body, a feeling I am not familiar with, actual heartache. There is an icy loneliness in my soul despite the warm laughter of my children just moments ago. I have lived my life for them these past years with a love that only God Himself can measure. I realize now that, too soon they will pull away from the threadbare apron strings that tie them so closely to me, as they try and find themselves in this world. What will my life be after that? 

I want to feel love and happiness again. I want purpose in my life. I want success and prosperity. I want to laugh until it hurts, every day. I want to sit on a white sand beach cradled in the arms of someone I can't live without. I want to sing. I want to hike into the mountains and skinny dip in a crystal clear pool of water. My soul longs for such things. I want to put aside my fear and have the courage to experience life—my life lived on my terms. 

Selfish? Hell yes it's selfish, but we owe it to ourselves to be happy in this life. Life is short after all. Do we waste it? Do we squander our gift? Life is a gift. Life should not be a chore or a rut or monotonous. There is nothing wrong with wanting more from life. Perhaps that is why the heart aches. It is an announcement to the soul to get on with the business of living, loving and laughing...you just have to be willing to surrender to it.

Naked Emotion

My life right now is so surreal. My heart is full of questions. Will closing one door open another that offers more beauty, wonder and happiness than I can imagine? Or, will closing that door leave me in the dark, alone, frightened and lost? Too many times in my life I have relied on another person to make me happy, and what I've learned, is that that is impossible. You have to be happy with yourself, and then find someone who can share in that happiness. You have to love yourself before you can ever truly love someone else. What if you didn't know that at the beginning of a relationship? What if all that knowledge and enlightenment came later? Would you still look at your loved one through the same eyes? Would you slowly, maybe even subconsciously reel your heart back in because the one you gave it to so willingly, so long ago, had forgotten to tender it? What do you do when you feel you have no more love to give? The hardest thing you ever have to do in this world is tell someone that you want your heart back. The danger of being able to feel your heart again are the waves of emotion that overwhelm your very soul—pain, sorrow, guilt, regret, resentment, anger, confusion, but also fondness, gratitude, appreciation, and yes...love. Vivid memories of a life together are bittersweet. You know you would not be who you are today without having had the experience. The door is open. You look forward across the threshold into uncertainty and a vast sea of possibility hoping the sunlight is there to brighten your days once again.

Change

Change should be a four letter word. No one really likes change, it's scary and uncomfortable, but what if—what if on the other side of it were more happiness and joy than you ever imagined? Would you still be afraid? 

Changing anything in our life means stepping out from under our warm blanket of familiarity and security and into the unknown. Sometimes we may even go to the edge of our comfort zone and peek at what's over the line, but always retreat back to what we know—it's safe after all. So you have to ask yourself...do I want to play it safe, or do I take a chance? 

We are all changing whether we realize it or not. We grow up, we grow older and wiser. We don't want or need the same things we did ten or twenty years ago. That kind of change happens so subtly, we don't necessarily notice it, but it happens nonetheless. Then sometimes life makes us face change, because of bad choices or decisions we have made, and then we must endure situations like a bankruptcy, or job loss, or loss of a loved one. In those moments we are defined, because on the other side of those hard life changes we learn something about ourselves. Hopefully, we are made stronger, we are made better. 

Making a conscious decision to change something about yourself or your life is the Universe's way of keeping spirit moving forward—to keep it growing. We are here to experience life not just to live it. When your life presents you with the opportunity to have a new experience that makes you want to change I believe that is the soul's way of telling us that we are not fully living. We are missing something, or maybe someone in our life that would make us whole, but we have to have the courage to face change.