Where do you feel happy? And if you found such a place, how often would you make every effort to go there? This would be a place where you would feel loved and worthy and safe and engaged in life. No boredom there. No hard testing. Except, of course, some of us are happiest when faced with challenges that we have to give our all to meet.
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That’s probably why people run marathons. I haven’t decided that would be a happy time for me. I love to walk, but running 26 miles is another matter. But my son-in-law and daughter enjoy testing themselves by running in races and feeling the accomplishment of finishing with a faster time than they did in the last race.
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Me, I’m happy when I’m writing and it can certainly be challenging to come up with the right idea that can start the snowball of story creation rolling. At times the idea can explode and lend itself to a dynamite beginning that maybe writes itself but then somewhere along the story writing way will come some writing doldrums. I usually have a few stretches of doldrums when I’m writing – times when I wonder if I’ll ever finish this story or even if it’s worth finishing. And yet I’m only really happy when I’m somewhere in the process of telling a story.
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Not that I don’t get happiness from other things. I certainly do. I love my family and I’m crazy about my grandkids. I am blessed with a life chock full of happy possibilities. Even now staying with Mom so much, there are happy possibilities as Mom and I spend more time together than we have in years. Of course there are also the happy times when I do get to go home and just be me. And part of me – a big part of me – is a writer. That was part of me before I ever met my husband. It can be a frustrating part – a maddening part – a consuming part. But in the center of all of that it can be a happy part.
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I got going on the idea of where to find happiness from our Sunday bulletin today. In the printed material on the back the writer asks, “Where is a good place to find happiness?” And he suggests we might answer “the church.” I do hope you expect to find that inner happiness so necessary to your well being in your chuch. I do. But I also know I need to be writing words that will slide one sentence into the next and the next until I have a story going. And then I’m happy – at least until I hit the doldrums. ;o)
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I’ve been so busy this weekend with the trip to Books by the Banks in Cincinnati and then staying at Mom’s and trying to cook for Homecoming meal and going to Homecoming and then back to Mom’s that happiness hasn’t been much on my mind. More survival or perhaps endurance is the better word. Maybe I’m running those races just like my daughter and son-in-law, but they’re private races – races to get everything done and some words written too.
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I haven’t even been home long enough to pick my winners for my birthday giveaway, but by next blog post for sure. Oh yeah, and I just put the flower picture because I liked it. It’s been way too chilly today as if winter is trying to leapfrog over autumn and so I needed a little bright time. Plus, the area where I took the picture of those Dutchman’s-breeches is one of the places I can always find a good dose of happiness while I’m hiking. Church is another, especially on a day like today when we were celebrating 198 years and welcoming so many friends back home.
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Where is a good place for you to find happiness?
