Upon making yourself happy

Night time has fallen here in our part of the universe and East 14th Street, for the most part, is peaceful and quiet.  It has been one gorgeous day in south central Kansas, pretty remarkable for the 28th day of January. The past weekend's weather was beautiful as well.   We woke up Sunday morning to a cold and dreary day with a light mist coming down intermittently.  In drought-stricken Kansas, we could have used a lot more moisture but we give thanks even for the slightest amount these days and pray for more to come. By the time the sun broke through right after lunch, the temperature warmed up tremendously and everywhere you could find folks out and enjoying the great day.  Between cold winter weather and outbreaks of the flu and a thousand other illnesses, many people out there are hurting.  I have many friends that have been ill this past week and I hope for them and for all of the others that this sickness goes away pretty dang  soon.  The bitter cold has a "hold" on the north eastern part of the United States, the very place that I'm heading in a couple of months as part of my "bucket list" journey.  The Rocky Mountains that I drove through a week ago are due in for heavy snows tonight.   I count my blessings this day that I feel great and am sitting in a house that is warm enough.  So many others out there can't say that right now, for whatever reasons.  In the least, in the VERY least of things, I do so give thanks.

You know friends, can we talk about something for a second? How many of you have ever fallen into the "trap" of believing that your happiness comes from other people instead of yourself?  Just a show of hands~you and I are the only ones who will ever know.  Hold them high cause I am counting...... Yep, I thought I'd find a few and if your hand is up then rest assured that mine is as well.  Looks like we are in pretty good company and we are definitely not alone.

For years and years now, I have been so guilty of that practice and the price that I have paid has been tremendously high.  I'm not sure that I have a really good explanation for it, other than I've always done it that way.  It was a habit and I might add, a deeply engrained one and  very hard one to break.  For whatever crazy reasons, there have been many times in my life that the road I was on felt pretty bumpy and the detours that I had to take were some "doozies".   I was sure that I would find happiness along the way and when things didn't actually turn out as planned I became disheartened.  And being disheartened leads to being sad and that sadness in turn leads to a host of other problems that are near unto impossible to shake.  

Life finally started to become better for me a couple of years back when I realized for the first time just how "insane" this notion is of relying on other people for your happiness.  And when I FINALLY realized that the only person who could ever make me happy was ME, then life began to get about a gazillion times easier.  I've been trying to keep that attitude ever since and although I do slip and fall backwards from time to time, I know that I've done so much better.  If you, like me, are working on it as part of the improvement of  your daily life then I commend you and believe you me, I know your struggle.  I encourage you to keep trying even though sometimes it is so tempting to just give up.  

I have plenty to be happy about these days and I know it all too well.  I may not be a multi-millionaire when I die but I have a job that I love and the last time I checked, you can't take any money with you when you leave this place anyways.  I have been married and divorced twice but even in  that heartache I was blessed to become the mom of 3 wonderful kids.  Which child would I have given up to have never gone through those sad times?   You guessed it~NONE of them.  And when my life is finally through, be that tomorrow, next month, or 40 years from now I know that I will have done pretty much exactly what I set out to do.  That's a comforting thought to me and what comforts me surely makes me very happy with myself and the good life around me.  

I've said it a thousand times before and will say it a thousand times again, I am a slow learner.  But this I know, after 20,914 days of my existence~Being happy, being satisfed and being content with life is all up to me.  And in the words of Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young's song, "It's been a long time coming." but surely glad that I finally figured it out before it was too late.

Have a great evening friends and family!  With your friendship, I am blessed a thousand-fold.

The best view ever~winter's sunrise along the Western slopes in Montrose, Colorado.

The place where I learned to love winter and I cannot believe I just said that.