*This post has been in the works for a while. I just needed to be in the right place mentally to write it correctly. And the last few weeks, I've just not been who I needed to be to write this adequately.
One of the things my mom and I picked up in Washington DC is a little plaque with a Benjamin Franklin quote.
"The Constitution only gives people the right to pursue happiness. It's up to you to catch it."
So very true, right?! In a world of instant gratification and entitlement, I think we get frustrated if we're not happy...just because.
I think we all have those days where nothing is going right and the whole world seems to have ganged up against you and you can't seem to piece together enough positive to even find a reason to get up tomorrow morning. Those are the days you have to really want happiness. Those are the days you have to be willing to put on your fancy running shoes and chase happiness down. Somedays, I feel like I've run a marathon trying to find something, anything, to be happy about. And honestly, somedays, I just sit at home whining about how nothing is going my way.
I've had far too many of these pity parties as of late. It's got to stop. A little sadness is okay. If we weren't sad sometimes, how would we know to appreciate the times when we're happy? But I've been letting it weigh me down too much. Which leads me to my next wisdomous tid bit.
I was watching The Lion King with my niece, Taylor, a few weeks ago. And you know Rafiki? The monkey? Well, he finds Simba, after he's run away and grown up, and whacks him on the head with a stick. Simba tells him that it hurt. And Rafiki shares a little life-changing monkey wisdom...
Rafiki: It doesn't matter! It's in the past.
Simba: It still hurt!
Rafiki: Ah yes. The past can hurt. But the way I see it, you can either run from it...or learn from it.
People might think I had a limited childhood because of all the Disney I grew up with. But when you learn such valuable life lessons, who can really complain?
I think that I thought after the divorce was finalized, I could just go on with life, acting like those awful things had never happened. And honestly, it worked for a little while. But eventually they all came screaming back, in various forms and very painful reminders.
You can try to run from it, but it's always going to be there and somehow the past always catches up to you.
And yes, parts of the past hurt. It's hard for me to forget the sting of rejection, of not being enough for him to want to do anything to be with me. It's hard for me to think about trusting someone again when he had promised never to hurt me. It's hard for me to trust that next time around I can be partners with someone who won't betray me and start making decisions not caring about the damage it would do to me, so long as he was doing what he wanted. It's hard for me to hope that one day I can have all the things that were just within my grasp, and then were yanked away.
BUT...
Going through life not trying to have those things is not an option. I can't be so scared of what might happen, that I don't take the risk. The greater the risk, the greater the potential reward. Sure I'll still find myself disappointed from time to time. But if I never go out on a limb, never imagine myself catching that happiness, I'll never get the things I know I want.
And honestly, how do you run from 8 years of your past? You can't. And you'll exhaust yourself to insanity if you try.
So I'll learn from it. I'll learn that I can't place all the blame for something on someone else. But I can't accept all the responsibilities for something either. And while I tried, the best I thought I could, there are still things I could have done differently. I can learn that, when it comes down to it, I'm a lot stronger than I would ever have thought. I can learn that, while I'm not perfect and I still have a lot to figure out, I'm really good at some things. I can learn that sometimes you just have to live with the crap. I can't wish awful things to happen to someone who hurt me. I can wish that he would accept some responsiblity and feel some remorse. But I need to accept that it's something I'm probably not going to witness, at least not in this lifetime.
And then I move on. I keep chasing down the things that make me happy. I keep learning from the past. I keep taking deep breaths and taking the risk, because it's what I need.
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