Happiness: I'm Finally "There."

It took a recent message from my past, to really click to me just how far I’ve grown. 

For the longest time, perhaps my whole life, (and largely because of society’s conditioning) I have always been longing for, waiting for, and racing to finally “get there,” wherever “there” even meant. I’m not so sure I ever stopped to really dissect that question and ask myself where on earth I was trying to “get” to and why I was in such a rush or why it felt so far away. 

I feel like I kept making up answers along the way. That “there” was “happiness,” and “there” would be when I finally enjoyed life. At first, I thought it would be when I got accepted into college. But when I got there, I still wasn’t “there.”  So then, I told myself, I’d finally be happy when I graduated college--it still wasn’t it. I thought it was a job, and that for sure wasn’t it. I truly believed it was a boyfriend, and that couldn’t be more off.

So now I was left with nothing. I had nowhere else to run to. No more rocks to turn over. I was just still. And that’s probably the exact place I finally found it.

Happiness. 

All along, I thought happiness was a destination, it was external things; more things that I needed to add to myself and into my life. But I now understand that it is the exact opposite. Happiness to me, was just being able to stop ruminating about my past, and stop fearing my future, and just enjoy the moment in the present. A muscle you have to exercise every day; making decisions and a commitment to yourself, housekeeping your thoughts daily.

It was just being able to wake up everyday, knowing I’m enough and I’m whole. And that I’m okay and going to be okay. That I am still loveable and deserving as I am. That I’m not perfect, I’m not meant to be perfect, and that’s okay. That I’m alive and that’s enough and the only thing I’m supposed to do, is enjoy my time here on earth, in the body I was given, and as the soul that I am.

And it took a message from someone in my past, to swirl me in a wave of memories of all the dark places I’ve been, and almost forgotten, to wake up and confidently realize: I’m finally there.

I’ve made it. Made it through the fog I’ve been living my whole life in.

I made it not because of a career, a partner, money, achievements, or anything.

But absolutely because of me, and my mind. And it doesn’t mean I wake up happy every single day. It means, my insecurities, wounds, past, and future, no longer have a suffocating grip over me. That I can see them, I can be hurt, I can feel sad, I can be scared, and still return to a home base of security within me. 

That I can experience genuine moments of joy throughout my day, even if I’m not where I’m aiming to be. Because even right now and right here is a special place of its own. 

I’m finally happy, I’m content. I’m taking my time to learn, unlearn, grow, and heal, and I’m okay with it. I’m okay with me; the strengths and the weaknesses. 

I love everything about my life, just as it is. I’m right where I’m meant to be, as the version of me I am meant to be right now. 

And if I could go back to the younger me, I wish I could’ve told her how beautiful it gets, how much more special life can be. How much more extraordinary she could be. And I wish I could’ve told her to just let go a little sooner, be happier sooner, laugh more, explore more, and just have fun. I wish she didn’t spend as many years as she did torturing herself and holding on so tightly to the things that were destroying her.

But I know even she had her own journey she needed to go through. And thanks to all the battles she fought, and how hard she held onto life itself, I am able to be this person I am today. 

So I hope if you’re reading this, that you can free yourself a little today. Let go a little more, laugh a little more, and trust a little more. You’re already there. You’re already whole. You’re already enough, deserving, and lovable as you are. 

Let’s be brave to hurt openly, and heal loudly, so that whoever may be watching, would know that they too aren’t alone. And that we’re all going to be okay.