You Look So Happy …

I’ve always believed in taking “pretty pictures” even when I’ve been feeling really sick. Because they remind me that I CAN do things .. if only visit the park for ten minutes on a “good day”. I like to see a smile on my face in a photo, because it paints a picture that is closer to my mind’s eye than the story that my egoic mind is bitching about … mainly that I live in pain trapped inside of a body that doesn’t play nice.

I’ve posted lots of “pretty pictures” recently. The ones where I am laughing incessantly with my boyfriend and/or my kids. Because we seem to do a lot of laughing these days. And it is true. I am very happy. But I also notice with people who don’t know me very well, that there are a lot of assumptions made when they see me “happy”. Mostly, that I must be “well”. I must be “doing better”. In some way shape or form .. I must have “recovered” because now I am “happy”.

Would be a lovely story if that was the case. But what is more important that I’ve learned in this “happy time”, is that you can be utterly happy and laugh and play …. while you are still very sick, in pain and your life is otherwise in a downward spiral of uncertainty and turmoil. I am very happy, perhaps for the first time in my life. And at the same time my heart is in pieces and often weeps at the loss that is simply beyond words.

THIS is what is meant by HAVING IT ALL. The direct experience of pleasure and pain. And the deep abiding lesson that it IS possible to BE HAPPY even when your life seems to be turned upside down.