Because you just can't help but smile, when you round the corner, and see Big Ben....
on a clear blue sky London day...
...or after a stupendous evening.
on a clear blue sky London day...
...or after a stupendous evening.
Showing posts with label happiness. Show all posts
Showing posts with label happiness. Show all posts
Tuesday, March 6, 2012
Monday, January 17, 2011
Friends, family, love, hugs
This weekend, I've been blessed with wonderful friends and family surrounded by love. It's felt so marvelous. No special occasion, no special efforts just beautifulness. Some highlights...
- A long, lazy Saturday morning with Dear Daughter. We are reveling in each other lately.
- Saturday evening with my sister and family - hanging out with nachos and talking about nothing in particular. The kids, her husband, sis, and me - floating in and out seamlessly - just family ease and love.
- Sunday morning at All Souls Church - a big (first) hug from Rev. Rob Hardies, with a nice 'mwah' to accompany it. A beautiful soprano voice fills the silence of the sanctuary with "We Shall Overcome."
- Sunday brunch with my first new, real friend in years. M is also a single mom, doing 90% of the parenting. She's also urban, professional, accomplished and stylish. It's nice to have a new friend with so much in common.
- Sunday "quiet time" with a book and a computer.
- Giving flowers to our au pair to celebrate her 1-year anniversary in our home and family. It feels good to give and to make others feel good.
- An evening with K&J - dear longtime friends who excude warmth, welcome and goodness. A delicious dinner.
Wednesday, June 23, 2010
The Pursuit of Happiness
Sigh. I've worked long and hard to get here these last years...maybe not perfect happiness, but a sense of peace, contentment, acceptance, enjoyment, and appreciating the moment. And I'm not sure that the state I'm in in a lasting one; in fact, I'm a bit nervous that it could go away at any moment. And truthfully, I hate the whole polyanna principle -so annoying it makes me gag. I enjoy - nay, cherish - my edge, my skepticism, my cynical bite. Thank god for those. But here I am, as if a switch has flipped on, and I have found peace and contentment on more days than not. I am satisfied. I am grateful (not "practicing gratefulness," just grateful to have such a cool life). I accept the imperfections and the minor irritations, and don't try to wrangle them to submission anymore (perhaps this is my greatest revelation of late).
While it's been a long process, the turnaround seemed to happen as I headed into my 40th birthday - just feeling all-around good. I remember being in Paris, and eating a salad from a cellophane container from a bakery, and stating it was the best salad I had ever had. My friend looked at me skeptically. But it was the moment, *that* moment, of eating a salad of beets and sweet corn with a dijon vinaigrette; sitting on the cool concrete staircase along the Seine (and because of those cool, concrete steps, I truly *felt* them in the moment); the gentle evening light as dusk approached; my last night in Paris after a very satisfying, fully-earned, long-anticipated vacation. The whole thing made that the best salad of my entire life. Obviously, I'm not making that up, because it is over 2 months later, and I can relive the details while writing this. I had other such moments during my Paris trip - the best beer, the best cup of coffee, the best crepe au sucre.
And every once in a while, here, back in the grind, I have those moments again. Wow, what a gorgeous evening on my porch, looking at the lush green grass (it looks especially green and unweed-y tonight), a child is laughing and a dog is barking, the weather is just perfect with a light breeze, and I am truly relaxed and happy.
I've had a long road since my separation from Dear-ex-Husband - just over four years now. It was Hell. My world turned upside down. Everything felt so uncertain and shitty. And everything was. And instead of getting slowly better, as we separated in May 2006 and I re-found my temporary grounding (in fact I remember feeling pretty high on life a year later in 2007), it turned temporarily worse. Life took a steady, and seemingly unending nosedive later that fall, and into the next fall (2008) and winter (2009), and even some pretty endless annoyances as late as August and September 2009. These years weren't years of complete darkness. In this time, I took a fabulous trip to China, and had many cherished experiences and moments. But the overall was a total slog, and completely uphill exhausting. And then - slowly, but also at a relatively identifiable time in retrospect (maybe it was November 2009, maybe February 2010) - it all eased. And clear river currents began to flow again.
I have put conscious inputs to this happiness. First, I identified what made me happy and vowed to do more - cooking, swimming, going to All Souls Church. At some point, I calculated I was doing 3-5 hours per week of tasks solely related to actively investing in my well-being (1 hour of swimming, 1 hour of church, 1 hour of counseling/therapy, a 45-min meditation CD that was regular company in September 2008). I felt good during and after each, but wondered aloud when it would actually kick-in long-term. I mean, 4+ hours of dedicated "me" time for inner restoration seemed almost excessive to me. It wasn't like the rest of my life- hours were all slog. I went to to movies, met friends, took hikes, read books to my daughter, had some steamy make-out sessions.
I still wonder what the hell is next. I still find that my job can suck the life out of me some days. I can be racked by stress. But here it is, and here I am. I'm not expecting a perma-state of contentment, but I do seem to have some lasting coping skills, and new perspective, that I hope to drawn upon forever after -when I need it and also when I don't.
While it's been a long process, the turnaround seemed to happen as I headed into my 40th birthday - just feeling all-around good. I remember being in Paris, and eating a salad from a cellophane container from a bakery, and stating it was the best salad I had ever had. My friend looked at me skeptically. But it was the moment, *that* moment, of eating a salad of beets and sweet corn with a dijon vinaigrette; sitting on the cool concrete staircase along the Seine (and because of those cool, concrete steps, I truly *felt* them in the moment); the gentle evening light as dusk approached; my last night in Paris after a very satisfying, fully-earned, long-anticipated vacation. The whole thing made that the best salad of my entire life. Obviously, I'm not making that up, because it is over 2 months later, and I can relive the details while writing this. I had other such moments during my Paris trip - the best beer, the best cup of coffee, the best crepe au sucre.
And every once in a while, here, back in the grind, I have those moments again. Wow, what a gorgeous evening on my porch, looking at the lush green grass (it looks especially green and unweed-y tonight), a child is laughing and a dog is barking, the weather is just perfect with a light breeze, and I am truly relaxed and happy.
I've had a long road since my separation from Dear-ex-Husband - just over four years now. It was Hell. My world turned upside down. Everything felt so uncertain and shitty. And everything was. And instead of getting slowly better, as we separated in May 2006 and I re-found my temporary grounding (in fact I remember feeling pretty high on life a year later in 2007), it turned temporarily worse. Life took a steady, and seemingly unending nosedive later that fall, and into the next fall (2008) and winter (2009), and even some pretty endless annoyances as late as August and September 2009. These years weren't years of complete darkness. In this time, I took a fabulous trip to China, and had many cherished experiences and moments. But the overall was a total slog, and completely uphill exhausting. And then - slowly, but also at a relatively identifiable time in retrospect (maybe it was November 2009, maybe February 2010) - it all eased. And clear river currents began to flow again.
I have put conscious inputs to this happiness. First, I identified what made me happy and vowed to do more - cooking, swimming, going to All Souls Church. At some point, I calculated I was doing 3-5 hours per week of tasks solely related to actively investing in my well-being (1 hour of swimming, 1 hour of church, 1 hour of counseling/therapy, a 45-min meditation CD that was regular company in September 2008). I felt good during and after each, but wondered aloud when it would actually kick-in long-term. I mean, 4+ hours of dedicated "me" time for inner restoration seemed almost excessive to me. It wasn't like the rest of my life- hours were all slog. I went to to movies, met friends, took hikes, read books to my daughter, had some steamy make-out sessions.
I still wonder what the hell is next. I still find that my job can suck the life out of me some days. I can be racked by stress. But here it is, and here I am. I'm not expecting a perma-state of contentment, but I do seem to have some lasting coping skills, and new perspective, that I hope to drawn upon forever after -when I need it and also when I don't.
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