Celebrating the Happy

I’ve been finding it difficult to keep up with this blog for the past few months in a consistent way. I haven’t felt as though I know what to share with you, my family and friends, who are loving me and supporting me in this time. However, I still appreciate US-2 for pushing us to create and keep up with a blog. I think it really is important to share in our adventures, our thoughts, our feelings, and our experiences…even if it is a little hard to get those thoughts together sometimes.

There have been many things to celebrate recently. The biggest cause for celebration in my mind, though, is the strong feeling of happiness that has been walking alongside me. This hasn’t been the “I’m happy at this cloud, or meal, or good night’s sleep, or hug, or painting” happiness, though. Those are good and they are worth celebrating as well, but that’s not what this is. No, this holds much more weight. It’s the “things have been hard for a long time and we’re now being reintroduced in a beautiful way” kind of happiness. It’s the kind that recognizes that there has been pain in loss, and there is grieving, and there is reorienting, and there is recognition that things will not be the same…but alongside of that truth, it also recognizes that the hard isn’t all there is. It’s not all there is supposed to be. But it’s the kind that isn’t trying to fool anyone either. It’s not claiming that we’ve reached “normal”, nor is it rushing me to find healing more quickly than is healthy. I’d like to think that it is a patient kind of happiness. One that I am seeing hope in and one that I can look back on even when things will still be hard, and my sweet dad’s loss will still be so painfully real…but one that is reminding me that it is real too.

I rode my bike to a park last week and ended up journaling a bit. This is what I ended up writing & I think it provides a helpful look into what I’ve been feeling.

“How do you begin to describe how peaceful, refreshing, comforting it is to feel like you? It almost seems silly to revel in you-ness…but in actuality it is one of the most unsilly things I can think of. To see and recognize by name parts of yourself that you feared had fled. To be assured that the hard and the scary—that that’s not all there is. To feel the sweetest relief at the stretch of your own smile and at the sound of your own laugh. Those are anything but silly. Those are important, and those are worth celebrating. Those are worth finding hope in, and those are worth thanking God for. A vacation back to yourself. I want to collapse in thanks for the first tangible sign of healing. And here it begins…here I can always return to be reminded that it is real and that it will come.”