by Allison Prinsen
I wonder about happiness. I think to myself, am I happy?
I don’t like that question. Is that because I am afraid of the answer? What if I’m not happy? What would that mean? Did I make the wrong decisions in my life? If I continue to ask myself these questions what if I don’t like the answers?
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I wonder if the people I see from my car window as I drive to work wake up with a kind of lightness? I remember having this lightness as a child, lying in my bed listening to the sounds of the streets as the evening summer light filled my bedroom. I reached for a large green maple leaf outside my bedroom window. I felt the furriness on its underside and the pleasure of stroking it against my cheek. A memory that is nothing more than pure weightless pleasure.
Did this kind of lightness belong only to my childhood, disappearing soon after my cancer diagnosis at age twenty-five?
Am I longing now for a time that doesn’t exist? A moment where the weight of the world is completely lifted? Would this be happiness? It can’t be because I am living in the weight of the world and I laugh all the time. But wouldn’t it be nice to have all the things that feel heavy in the world be lifted? Just for a little while?
I wonder if my kids feel the lightness of the world when they wake up in the morning? I hope so. They deserve to soak up every bit of lightness they can. My five-year old recently asked me to help her write a phrase to hang on our gratitude tree. She said, “I’m happy to be in the world,” signed Esme.
And the truth is, I am too. I have many responsibilities and worries and longings and disappointments and frustrations and self doubt, all of it. But, I also laugh, I love to make things and cook and eat and drink wine. I love a perfectly fried egg on sourdough toast with the beautiful morning light in my living room alongside a coffee with just the right amount of milk. I hate people that turn right from the middle lane, I hate spilling flour while I bake and I hate endless posts about how hard it is to be a mom. Just get over it already and stop writing about it! I really love hating that!
So, maybe I am happy, no, check that, I can experience being happy and perhaps that’s all I need---to experience moments of lightness in my life, just as it is.
Allison Prinsen first came to Callanish as a participant and has been a facilitator of our Younger Adult support group for many years. She is a board member and recently joined our team as our Creative Arts Director and counsellor.