Growing up

Since being back from Guatemala, I have had a lot of time to think and wonder and examine. I've been examining my life, the lives of others, decisions I have made, decisions others have made. I've looked at ways my heart has been broken, ways I have broken other peoples' hearts. Although the fog is starting to clear, I don't think I will ever fully understand what and why things have happened because that is not mine to know. I can learn from experiences and grow, but fully understanding why everything happens is not conceivable to my brain. The "what ifs" are too convaluted and the "how comes" are too numerous.

Despite the time I spend looking back and wondering, I keep getting pushed forward, time keeps moving on. Life happens, people get hurt, but joy also happens and people find happiness. And happiness cannot be found in the extraordinary, in the unusual, in that one momentous occassion. Happiness is found in rising out of bed to meet a new day.... In a conversation with an old friend, waving to your neighbor, feeling the breeze and seeing the leaves blow, walking your dog, playing cards with your family, putting a bandaid on a wound, drying someone else's tears.

Happiness is loving the life that the Good Lord places before you but knowing you can be more because of Him. Happiness is living in this moment, being present right here right now, and having faith that everything will turn out okay.

Here are some quotes from people that can say it better than I can:

"Love is a temporary madness. It erupts like an earthquake and then subsides. And when it subsides you have to make a decision. You have to work out whether your roots have become so entwined together that it is inconceivable that you should ever part. Because this is what love is. Love is not breathlessness, it is not excitement, it is not the promulgation of promises of eternal passion. That is just being "in love" which any of us can convince ourselves we are. Love itself is what is left over when being in love has burned away, and this is both an art and a fortunate accident. Your mother and I had it, we had roots that grew towards each other underground, and when all the pretty blossom had fallen from our branches we found that we were one tree and not two."
-St. Augustine

“Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.” -Winston Churchill