Bounce Back

You know, it surprises me how easily I bounce back to my default setting of happy/content. I mean, look at the last two weeks. I could easily say they've been some of the worst weeks of my life, considering all the stuff that's been going on. And yet I distinctly remember being happy most of the time during those two weeks. It has only been when I've thought about all the rotten things that I remembered I 'ought' to be unhappy and became so. Not only that, but thinking about all the things that have happened right now, I'm not feeling unhappy because I'm allowing myself to feel okay about it.

I don't think I'm all that unusual in this. I think, as human beings, we are meant to be happy. We are meant to find joy and satisfaction and comfort and love and peace in the things around us. That is our default setting, the setting God put us on when he sent us to earth. It is only through our own choices that we change that default setting to something else. People who are generally irritable, unsatisfied, find fault in the situation and people around them, who have to be made happy by something rather than just choosing happiness, for whom happiness is conditional, have a different default.

My day has been utterly unremarkable. Absolutely nothing out of the ordinary has happened today. If happiness is caused by outward events, then explain to me why, on this normal day, I am sitting here, feeling so completely comfortable, happy and satisfied? Sure, my Papa is doing marginally better today, you could say it's because of that. But I still have other things I could be upset about. I got a poor score on a math assignment, for example. And yeah, I'm not happy about that, but that doesn't mean I can't be happy about other things.

I stayed up a bit later than usual last night, so when I woke up this morning, I turned off my alarm and went back to sleep for another half an hour. I've been feeling lazy ever since. I got ready slowly, didn't bother making breakfast (I bought it; don't worry, I ate), walked slowly, took lots of breaks from doing my homework to fiddle around this morning, watched a little tv... lazy lazy lazy.

After my only class of the day, I decided to go to the grocery store. So I shambled on over there (there was this leaf being blown along by the wind that kept pace with me most of the way there, it was so cute, like I had a tiny friend trying to keep up with me), lolled around the store for a bit and bought a couple things. After that, on the way back, I made an unplanned stop for ice cream (guys, I think I've found a new retreat! $1 ice cream that lasts forty five minutes eating slowly + free wi-fi = yay!) (sorry, I've been doing a lot of math lately) and now here I am, lounging in a plump green armchair in the Snow building and contemplating this unexpected feeling of complete happiness in my chest.

Please don't take this to mean I don't care about my grandparents or that I'm fine with either of them dying. No. When they leave this world, I will not be okay with it. There will be plenty of tears here and I'll miss them terribly. But they're not gone yet, and I've grown tired of mourning in advance. It's exhausting to try and stay sad for long periods, and, anyway, I prefer being happy. So I hope I don't upset anyone if I defer my grief until it's actually time to grieve. In any case, I have total confidence in where they'll be going and it's not something to be sad over, so you know my crying will be more for myself than for them.