Sometimes, like when I’m driving the kids home from school and we’re all singing Taylor Swift in the car together, or when I’m pushing the littles in the stroller down our road on a bright, sunny day and miraculously, no one is screaming or fighting, it hits me:
I am happier than I have ever been in my entire life.
In fact, I have absolutely everything I have ever wanted in life–I’m making actual money as a writer (what the what?!), four beautiful children, a warm house and a backyard for my kids to play in, easy access to Starbucks, a garden, a husband who loves me, and insurance that covers massages. (I know, trite, but still awesome.)
And in those moments when I am overwhelmed with how incredibly lucky I am to be so content at last in life, I immediately seized with another feeling:
Fear.
Image via Flickr/Mira Pangkey
Whenever I start counting my very real blessings, I am overcome with the feeling that 1) I don’t deserve any of it 2) No one gets this lucky so surely something bad will happen soon and 3) It could all end tomorrow so I better soak it up except now I’m panicking about something bad happening but don’t let the kids see that, enjoy it now!
Granted, I get a bit crazy, but the heart of the matter is something pretty deep–
It’s incredibly hard to accept happiness in our lives.
The theories on this could vary greatly–we are all sinners so therefore feel extreme guilt; the media wants us to all to feel scared all of the time; there is a lot of pressure to enjoy every moment of life now that we have luxuries such as antibiotics and the audacity to name our children when they are born instead of waiting a few years to see if they survive–but the consistency of how hard it is to simple be happy never really changes.
We never want to accept that we deserve happiness, even if it’s what we search for our entire lives.
And on that note, I’m off to eat a bacon-and-avocado bean sprout sandwich, which I’m pretty sure is going to bring me a finite amount of fleeing happiness. But I’ll take it.
Read more from me this week (it will make us both happy, I just know it!):
- 8 Things Every Mom Thinks After Halloween
- 1o Things To Be Grateful For As A Mother
- Holiday Gift Idea: A Yearly Family Photo Album
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