H-A-P-P-Y

Mid-week thoughts from your favorite Sagittarius, carrot loving, lactose intolerant, almost-phlebotomist. (I figure the more qualifiers I add, the more likely I am to be accurate)

{In recent news, Emilyn came and visited me and we are scary good at smoldering} 

Okay, it's late, and I should be sleeping but I'm worried that I'll wake up tomorrow and what I have to say will lose all meaning and become disingenuous. Aka the last thing I ever want to be. And what I have to say is this:

People always talk about how happiness is a choice, which at one point was my biggest pet peeve. Since childhood, I've seen the world in black and white, and if I know one thing it is that happiness is not black and white.

I know this because I can look at this picture of Stela (another fabulous friend of mine) and myself and feel 11 different feelings all at once. This day was fairly uneventful, we went to lunch, and when I look at it one of those things I feel is of course happiness, but it's mixed in with so many other emotions that it becomes gray. So when we say "happiness is a choice," though it may be true, it usually just makes me roll my eyes. If it was as easy as choosing what kind of cereal to have for breakfast, my life would be a whole lot different. When it's all said and done, I do believe it comes down to a choice, not a choice to be happy, but a choice to fight for happiness. Emotions are messy and once you've been happy once that doesn't meant you're set forever, it's still a battle. I think happiness is not just a feeling but an achievement.

Jeffrey R. Holland once taught that when we reach that state of happiness we have to strive to maintain it. 

So how do we do that? 

Here is how I plan to:

1. By surrounding myself by the best people. 

Enough said.

 2. Exercise

(To my dismay) 

Maybe someday running the steps up to Old Main will feel like NBD, but not today and certainly not yesterday either. 

3. Learning/Reading/Progressing

This has been a big one for me lately. The joy I get from learning isn't fleeting (unlike the joy I get from shopping—oops). The adjustment of moving half across the country was made so much easier by school. I could go on for days about how much I love love love and appreciate all that I've learned in the past month. 

(This is where I usually lay on the grass and do homework because the weather here is fantastic and apparently fire ants are not a thing. Win-win-win)

4. By expressing myself 

I'm grateful for my books, my paints, my washi tape, pens, crayons, stamps, blogging, poetry, make-up, and all of the other things that help me communicate all the different colors inside me. Which is so huge for me. I want to be a good communicator but I stress so much about saying the right thing. The more I express myself privately, through art, poetry, unposted blog entries, the easier time I have expressing what I truly feel to those around me becuase I have a better grasp on what it is I'm actually experiencing. 

All in all, I'm happy here, and I'm committed to staying that way.