Sometimes You Just Need a Happy Place.

I had a bad day on Tuesday. It happens. Not that often but it happens. I am generally a happy person, especially since the much anticipated hysterectomy. But sometimes things just hit you right between the eyes and there is nothing that you can do about it.

And really, this wasn’t that bad a thing. It wasn’t earth shattering. It wasn’t life changing. It was just something that was said and not even to my face and not even about me personally. But I took it personally. I took it personally and for a time I was right back in what I like to think of as “the bad place”. The time when I was totally absorbed by what others thought of me. And that is such a bad place because nothing good can ever come of being there. And you can never find peace. And it just slayed me for a number of hours. Poor HHBL had to deal with tears and blubbering and rambling talk and…

Well, I tend to ramble in the talk department on a good day so maybe that wasn’t any different. But HHBL is a fixer and this wasn’t really something that he could go out and fix.

The question is what do you do when you get bogged down in a place like that? I know what I do. I will often times choose, now, to do something that is creative in nature and that literally feeds the happiness inside me. I meditate on scripture. I organize. Yes, I know that last one doesn’t make sense to most people. I am just wired wrong. And I take time to think about times when I was totally and completely happy.

I think we all have times like that. When we are in the midst of something or anticipating something and it just strikes us that this is a most excellent moment. These are some of the ones on my list because I know that you wanted to know. And I think it is a good idea for you to have your own list. You can borrow my list but I am not sure that it would have the same impact you know what I mean.

But I digress. Here is a part of my list.

- Times at the dinner table, all the progeny there, we are laughing and joking and talking long after the meal is done. Laughing so hard at times that I am crying, or trying not to pee in my pants.

- getting off the plane and seeing my college roomies Susan and Stacy after a long time apart. We take up right where we left off.

- the soft air of Hawaii in the evening just before the sun went down, at dinner with HHBL having just about the best piece of fish I have ever eaten.

-waking to the sounds of birds that I can’t identify and sounds outside my window that tell me that I am in a totally foreign country.

-bedtime when the progeny were little. Snuggling together and reading a favorite book, usually Ivy Cottage or perhaps the Little House books.

- laughter shared with HHBL. He can make me laugh more than anyone else I know and I think that those are some of the times that I cherish the most and that make me the most happy.

OK. I am done now. Go and make your own list. You will be amazed at what it can do for you.