Masks

~ Never put your happiness in someone elses hands~

As I grow older I start to realize I don't really understand how to be happy. Somewhere along the line, I told myself I did not deserve to be happy. Or I shouldn't be happy until I lost my stomach, got married, bought a house, won the lottery..etc. Currently, I am in school for my Masters, I have a fairly decent job, I am in therapy, my account is only negative every 6 months, my children love me, I don't have any baby daddy drama (they just don't care enough to bother me and although that makes me sad sometimes, because I picked them..it is less stress that I have to deal with) and I have a man who adores me. All things considered I should be happy or what the world deems as happy..but I am numb. Or its possible this is how happy feels?

How do you really know if you are happy or not? I mean I would think that if I was happy, I wouldn't wake up every morning exhausted and needing to cry. I want to say it is because I am still grieving. I see my future and think about the fact that my dad will never walk me down the aisle, my granny won't pray over me before I get married, my godmother won't do my hair..etc, I could be grieving for the missed opportunities when I was young that would have prepared me more for the things that are happening in my adulthood. A truer statement would be that I am grieving the relationship I will never have with my mother. The support, acceptance and unconditional love that I didn't get from her which caused me to except any form of it from other people. For me to give it freely, even when it was not deserved. The other day, my love asked why he had never met my mother and I just looked at him. There is no way to explain why you wouldn't want to introduce someone you love to your mom.

So, daily I get up and go through my day trying to stay present and appreciating what I have. Learning that I cannot blame my childhood for the decisions that I make in my adulthood. Although my frame of reference is heavily influenced by the things I have experienced, it is constantly changing as I learn new things about myself and life. I am constantly learning from my failures and working to not beating myself about them. It doesn't mean that I don't constantly where a mask out in the world. Most people don't really want to hear about what you going through. Even though they are generally interested in your well being. It is not fair for you to burden others with all your problems, unless they are a licensed professional.

You have to learn everyone does not deserve your energy. There will be people who don't want you, don't want to be around you and genuinely have no love for you at all. But, you have to be okay with that and understand that you are worthy of all those things. Understand that there are people in the Universe that are created especially for you. I have been blessed to find those people all throughout my life, no matter what state I have been in or what stage I have been in. I am truly grateful to God that he found enough favor in me to place people in my life to guide me through the tragedies, successes and missteps that I have had in my life.

So, do I understand what it means to be happy? Will I ever have a morning when I don't have to cry in the shower while I recite 100 morning affirmations? Maybe..Maybe not. But, what I do know is that my happiness is what I make it and if it involves days were my mornings don't start out great...I know that is not where it has to end.