Tags
91st birthday, anxiety, Argentina, Brazil, family, happiness is a choice, Life, love, mental-health, packing, travel, trip, writing
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“Anxiety does not empty tomorrow of its sorrows, but only empties today of its strength.” — Charles Spurgeon
I am leaving for Brazil tomorrow to go celebrate my mom’s 91st birthday. We are planning to take her to Argentina again. She is so excited.
While I find myself happier and happier each day, I am a bit anxious as well. I was really anxious over that ConEdison debacle, so glad that is resolved. I am anxious about getting home and not seeing my father walking up to meet us, as he normally did. I know he is in a better place but still there is an emptiness.
I have self diagnosed myself as having happiness anxiety. I am always happy as I believe that happiness is a choice, but the happier I get, it also feels like I am waiting for the other shoe to drop. As if so much happiness is not possible and not sustainable, therefore something bad is coming along.
I am writing about it to get my internal dialogues on paper.
I feel better already 🙂
Now I am off to pack and finish work stuff.
So Much Happiness – Naomi Shihab Nye 1952
It is difficult to know what to do with so much happiness.
With sadness there is something to rub against,
a wound to tend with lotion and cloth.
When the world falls in around you, you have pieces to pick up,
something to hold in your hands, like ticket stubs or change.
But happiness floats.
It doesn’t need you to hold it down.
It doesn’t need anything.
Happiness lands on the roof of the next house, singing,
and disappears when it wants to.
You are happy either way.
Even the fact that you once lived in a peaceful tree house
and now live over a quarry of noise and dust
cannot make you unhappy.
Everything has a life of its own,
it too could wake up filled with possibilities
of coffee cake and ripe peaches,
and love even the floor which needs to be swept,
the soiled linens and scratched records . . .
Since there is no place large enough
to contain so much happiness,
you shrug, you raise your hands, and it flows out of you
into everything you touch. You are not responsible.
You take no credit, as the night sky takes no credit
for the moon, but continues to hold it, and share it,
and in that way, be known.
“Anxiety is a lot like a toddler. It never stops talking, tells you you’re wrong about everything, and wakes you up at 3 a.m.” — Unknown
