Choosing Happiness

Recently, during a stupid fight with my husband, I blurted through my sobs, “I don’t remember the last time I was happy.”

Though something deep inside reassured me it was a lie, the thought came from somewhere.

After a day or two of introspection, and discussing what it could mean with my husband, I came to the realisation what I meant, what I felt, was, “I don’t remember when my circumstances were happy.”

Happiness is a choice despite one’s circumstances. Always is. It’s the philosophy I live by.

However, when one’s circumstances aren’t usually happy, when one is going from challenge to challenge, struggle to struggle, it wearies the soul until exhaustion overrules all other senses. This exhaustion makes choosing happiness even more difficult when the circumstances aren’t conducive to maintaining it.

I know the last time I was truly happy was my wedding day, but even that happiness came after great struggle and cost. Those struggles, though, made the circumstances of that day—of knowing I’d finally arrived to one finish line, only to cross over into my next part of life, of knowing it was all worth it—joyous for me.

I’m sure there were others, but the intensity of that day’s happiness, that joy, was intoxicating.

Maybe I need to stop chasing after that euphoria. Maybe I need to stop looking for circumstances that match my choice to be happy.

If I have one complaint, though, it is why do the circumstances of happiness, the moments undefined and unaffected by my choice, have to be so few and infrequent? Why do I have to go from struggle to struggle with no respite? Why this constant pain and exhaustion?

Or are my circumstances as much my own making as it is my choice to be happy?

I know the frustration, the exhaustion, the toil is only temporary, but…it’s getting harder and harder to remember.

Maybe that’s it instead. Maybe I need to remember why I’m choosing happiness. Maybe I’ll find it if I remember what I’m living for.