Lately I’ve been drinking a little more often than usual, because the alcohol does something to push the chill from my bones, and I need that this time of year. My toes go numb, and my fingers and, oddly enough, my knees. The tip of my nose too, but that I don’t notice as much.
There is a real tree this year, for me and my husband. I’ve never had one before. It smells lovely, and between the tree and the candle our apartment smells like Christmas. I’ve made lots of ornaments too, with beads and things around the house and from Hobby Lobby. I made a wreath for our front door, white and silver for wintertime. I tucked red and gold silk poinsettias behind the mirrors so they peek above the corners; I draped garlands over the windows. Briefly my mind will skip over the question of why, why we go to all this trouble decorating—and the money!—just for it to be taken down in January. I know I would be sad without it but I will also be sad to take down all my hard work. Does it even out, then, the sadness? The happiness? The energy expended for anything; what would an objective cost-benefit analysis say? I want to not care, to do things just because they make me happy. So I will. I will do them.
I know things seem bleak sometimes these days, and maybe it’s the weather. The gray sky, the cold. But we will hack out a life from this mountain of adulthood and I will decorate it with beautiful things; sparkling things. Stubbornly, aggressively I will make it lovely. I will battle any ugliness with things that reflect what light there is and I will not take into consideration the cost. We will decorate for Christmas; we will be festive. We will celebrate and we will drink peppermint schnapps in hot chocolate and we will smile because this is good; this is pure, unadulterated good. And I will remember that fiercely, even when it seems like it’s one step forward and two steps back.
One step forward, two steps back sometimes it seems but I will keep running and I won’t stop. I can’t stop. Sometimes I think that if I do I will never take another step again. I will fight to be happy and to love my life and the choices I’ve made and what else can anyone do? I am responsible for my own happiness. It is frightening, and it is empowering at the same time.
I think maybe I can do it, though, because generally I make do and I am proud of that. I am resourceful; I always have been. Surely I can take the beautiful things around me and fashion them into something complete.
Someday maybe we’ll have a house with tall windows, and more rooms to put things in and then maybe we won’t feel so cramped; so small in comparison to this big responsibility of living.
Every day I convince myself that tomorrow I will do better.
Every day I will try to remember to make "happiness" a verb. To make it something that I do in the way I live. By taking care of myself, by resolving conflicts, by focusing on the positive things in life, by purposing do to things that make me happy, and consciously letting go of the things that don't. By not allowing myself to be defeated. By telling myself good things, even when I don't believe them, instead of bad things. By doing something about the things I can change, and not dwelling on the things that I can't. By purposely finding things to love, in life and in other people. Purposely.
Happiness is a battle that needs constant fighting.
Happiness is a beautiful but high-maintenance creature.
Happiness is a grand structure that needs to be built.
Happiness is not circumstance; it is a task that must be carried out with purpose. By me. By you.
Happiness is not a feeling that you sit back and wait to happen to you. Happiness is a verb.
At least that's what I'd like to believe, because that means that I am not completely subject to the whim of circumstance and every little thing that goes wrong. I can do something about it, even if it's just changing my mindset. I have some control.
I do.
And so do you.
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