The definition of happiness

I've been doing a lot more reading over the last month or so than I have since ... Hmmmm. It would appear that the last time I did this much reading just may have been last summer.

I like to read mysteries but there's only so many dead bodies one can take in one week. Over the last couple of days I needed to switch over to some chick lit. No dead bodies and not a great deal of thinking to do. Or so I thought.

Nearing the end of the book, I came across this -- "...happiness is not getting what you want but wanting what you get..." I don't know about y'all but I had to let that one marinate for a bit.

How many times have we heard someone say, "I could be happy if only..." Oh, let's be honest. How many times have we said these words to ourselves? I know that I have too many times to count. I am also guilty of the variation -- "I can do these things once x, y, and z fall into place." Thing is those things rarely happen and so you end up in this continual holding pattern.

A few weeks ago, I questioned here what it meant to be living. That's because it's always been that happiness was this future thought. And now I'm starting to think that while I may occasionally think that here can suck at times, there is happiness as well. And it's time to start looking for it.

I love my job; it's my commute that gets to me at times. But my commute is going to improve before the end of this year since the company is going to move. I love coming home each night. Yes, Boris can be an annoying little arse. Then there are those times that I'll be reading a book and he'll curl up next to me. And then I remember why I put up with the other stuff. And it's not just my apartment. I love my neighbors, my neighborhood. I have a near impossible time imagining living anywhere else. And some days I am in absolute awe that the former nomad has managed to stay in one place for over three years now.

And then I think about the rest of my life. Sure I'm not dating anyone but I often have doubts that I'm the marrying type. Along the way, I have managed to assemble my own family though -- people whom I love and who I have never doubted love me. And some of them are y'all. The hard part has been in finding the balance between the family that I have created and the one that I was given by virtue of birth.

I do love my blood relatives; I just don't always like them. Probably because deep down inside, I like myself and just can't understand why they act like I should be someone else. I just don't like that person they seem to want me to be. Well, not quite my father. I know that he'd love for me to not be "his wild child" -- the person who can be brutally honest at times and who will do things like dancing because aren't we supposed to be having fun? My father almost never voices his displeasure to me though. He tells me that it's important to be true to ourselves because this is the only way that we can truly be happy. Who cares what other people think? You can't live your life for other people. I know it's cliche but it's so easy to forget along the way.

And so now I'm starting to think that this is all that it's supposed to be -- nothing more, nothing less. And you know what? "It's alright with me."