Finding Happiness Within

It's a quiet Sunday morning.  My feelings are unsettled as they are most days.  Somehow, I'm continuing to get up every day and move through this so-called life of mine.  I am still puzzled by the fact that Ed is gone and that it has been over two years.  At times it feels like yesterday and at other times it feels like a lifetime ago.  Was what we had, all those years, real or a dream?  Is today some surreal dream and at some point I'll wake up and be back to my old life?  I pinch myself...nope, it's real.

I sit here and realize I can talk about my loneliness and sadness and how I feel like I am in some kind of "Groundhog Day" movie.  I am perplexed by what my life should be--what is my purpose for being on this Earth.

But this morning, as I sit on my back deck writing this, I will find peace in my surroundings and be thankful for what I have and not focus on what I have lost.  I am surrounded by the quiet of my back yard.  I smile at the flowers that are growing, even the flower pot that I arranged doesn't look half bad.  The vegetable garden is taking off and we had our first cucumber from it yesterday.  Dan came home this weekend and I so appreciate that he is close enough to come home every so often and that we can just enjoy hanging out together.  I am lucky enough to afford redoing the kitchen.  I have a good job that, yes, at times stresses me out.  But it also challenges me and enables me to work with some great colleagues and, most importantly, allows me to support myself.   That I have not been financially devastated when Ed passed, I am thankful for.  I have our house.  I can pay the bills.  I can afford to do home improvements.

So although this is not the life I had planned for myself. I will survive.  But I do wonder if that is what life is all about, simply surviving.  I don't think so.  I want to find happiness.  Do I have happy moments and days?  Absolutely.  Do I love life....not necessarily.  And that is what I want back.

But for now, I just need to continue to figure out this life of mine and find the happiness within...by myself, for myself.

In the quiet of a Sunday morning.  In the flowers that brighten my yard.  In the garden where I will harvest vegetables grown by my own hands.  And in the love and happy moments with family and friends.

How can this not make you smile?

I actually made this arrangement.  This was always Ed's area of specialty.  I think he'd be proud.  I am.

The garden is doing well.  I learned to plant less to avoid overcrowding.

The new kitchen which I am very happy with!