Pockets of Joy - Happiness Isn't Ever After

This is one of a couple blogs I intend to do this weekend, as I reflect and process over the last several weeks and how they adjusted some of my long held perspectives about life and romance.  Watching The Sandman really gave me a sandBOX to process things in my mind, as well.

In one episode of The Sandman, a misguided human that held Dream's jewel was out to "save" the world from their own "lies" to others and themselves.  When he heard that a diner waitress was a writer, he asked what she wrote .. fiction or non fiction.  She said that she used real stories but changed the endings to give them a happy ending.  He said that was because she knew when to stop, because all stories... if allowed to continue.. eventually ended in death.

That made me think about the fact that, indeed, all of my life's tragedies of which I have written were for long periods of times celebrations.  Both of my marriages began in hope (and maybe a little blindness), and even if they were not good matches, they made me happy at the time.  At the time, I believed that they would be my last marriage and gave me safe pockets of joy and security, even if that would change by the natural conflicts that would occur by bad selection or changing people.

Because, people DO change, as well.  There is a Doctor Who quote I have used often, when he is changing into the next doctor and said that we all change, if we think about it.  Each day, we are a different person than we were the day prior.  The best we can hope for is that we change in the same direction to continue to work together, though that may not and often does not happen.  We do play a part in choosing how we change, though, and what we choose to compliment.  So, it's not entirely out of our hands.

That said, it IS true that happiness is a temporal state that can be VERY TRUE one moment and then NOT TRUE the next.  It doesn't make the prior joy any less true at the time, as you WERE in fact HAPPY.

The man in sandman concluded that it invalidated the joys and that all was dark, but I take the opposite conclusion.  If we recognize that happiness can be here one moment and gone the next, we should live in the present joys in our lives... accepting that they may not last forever, as every parent knows of children that grow up and leave, as well.  

Then, when they end, don't destroy your own foundation and joy by declaring your heart foolish and your choices to jump an error.  Accept the joys of the past and be thankful for those that provided them, even if that can no longer happen.  Then, pick yourself up and look for the next pocket of joy, whatever form that may take... it may not even be a person.. and move on.  I think that is the solution of a happy life.  Look for how you can make new joys, rather than dwell on lost ones.. with the same person or someone or something new.