"I am not free while any woman is unfree, even when her shackles are very different from my own." -Audre Lorde
We are naturally happy women; compassionate, accepting. It does not take much for us to feel happiness. A simple birdsong, just as dawn happens, makes me happy. Finding a beautiful agate in great piles of dusty, dirty rocks, makes me happy. Seeing a seedling rise, bent, then straightening up and beginning tiny leaves, makes me happy. Is it that things make us happy, or rather that we were already happy and that makes it subjective? Objectified and confirmed happiness is more authentic. I had not thought of it this way.
What has us feel happy is unique to us. We may be a woman who keeps happiness futuristic. In other words, something we do not have, completely, in the Present, but will/could/should have when ______ happens. We become a hamster on a wheel, chasing after happiness that just eludes us. Such women are never fully happy because they want more. To them, happiness is also fleeting. One moment something, or someone, makes us happy and then it dissipates, leaving us wanting. It is as if, for a moment, something gives you great joy but then you have had enough of that and desire to have objects, people, places be more magnified happiness. So fleeting. So impermanent.
Only when we surrender to the fact that happiness is within us an part of our very nature. We deal with drama, chaos, failure, and detour around unsatisfactory people, places and things that we know do not fulfill our happiness quota. Life, itself, gets in our way. Sadness is normal and there will always be times where we do feel sad. That is part of the gift of feelings, as well. But negativity is not a natural state. Peace, love, serenity, grace, dignity, are sustainable and sustaining feelings but Happiness? Happiness is the main part of being satisfied, being curious, being adventurous, being grateful, being human. It is a inner sense. We choose to feel it in the absence of all things, people, places. As long as our basic needs are met, happiness abides. We are meant to feel and share happiness.
©Carol Desjarlais 4.18.22
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