Happy

I realized tonight that I was happy.

Not just content to have arrived successfully at the end of the day.

Not just relieved that most of what needed to get done mostly did.

Not just thankful that more bits and pieces of nonsense didn't get kicked up.

Actually. Happy.

How did I come to this moment of happiness, you ask?

While scooping cat poop.

Stop it. I'm being serious.

I had a zen moment while cleaning out the many litterboxes used by my feline overlords.

Remember: Actually. Happy.

Just...while holding cat poop.

See, I'd come home from this month's city council meeting, picked the kiddos up from the wonderful neighbor who was watching them, and bundled them all off to bed, lickity split. Silence in the house by 8:45 - that's enough to warrant its own zen moment right there.

Next up was bundling myself off to bed - I'm fresh off a 10-day hospital stay for pneumonia and need all the rest I can get.

But...

But...

The litterboxes needed scooped. The feline overlords and canine court jesters needed fed.

Sometimes, when my brain overflows with things that MUST. BE. DONE. RIGHT. NOW., I go into panic mode and none of it gets done. Other times, I go into manic mode and suddenly a list of 3,445 items materializes and must be finished by midnight.

Not tonight, though.

Tonight, thinking about the must-do's actually brought me strength, and an aura of calm that I haven't experienced in quite some time. And...happiness.

I was happy to be in the middle of the kids' lives, even just in mundane ways like successfully packing them all off to bed at the "right" time.

I was happy to be in the middle of the cats' lives, felines who have shared my many abodes over the past 15 years. Ample poop means healthy animals!

I was happy to be in the middle of the nightly feeding frenzy of the dogs and cats, because they bring great joy to our home.

But above all else, I was - and AM - happy to be in the middle of God's saving grace, surrounded by the love and guidance of Jesus and wrapped in the cloak of the Holy Spirit. The past 15 months have been the craziest in my life - and I can say definitively that without my faith in God, I wouldn't have made it through.

Somewhere along the way of this year and a quarter, I forgot that being happy was possible. Instead, I decided that the rule of the day was survival. Now I realize that I had things backwards: I'm not happy because I survived...I survived because I'm happy!

Life is good. Not perfect. Not without struggles. Definitely full of challenges. But here in the middle of this crazy, wonderful, exciting world, LIFE. IS. GOOD.