You deserve to be happy. I deserve to be happy. We all deserve to be happy. Sometimes we lose sight of this but for myself, recent events have brought me to the conclusion that no matter what is going on in my life I deserve happiness. We can not buy, trade or expect happiness, we have to create it ourselves but we all deserve it.
Moving to China seemed like an easy thing to do way back in July of 2011 when we got the news that we were heading overseas. But once I got down to brass tacks I realized what a huge challenge it really was going to be. I thought I had prepared myself mentally and emotionally to move to a foreign land where walking down the street creates a larger spectacle than a man taking a poop in the hedges. Boy, was I wrong! Not only was I adjusting to living a million miles away from 'civilization' with 15 million people but I was giving up my comfort bubble, functional indoor plumbing, trading in my independence for a driver and a translator, and learning to live with my husband after 10 years of him working shift work. Huge adjustments. HUGE.
I recently read She's Come Undone by Wally Lamb. I read it back in high school and had been meaning to read it again. Its the part where she spills all her secrets to her husband and chooses happiness that opened my eyes. I don't have the secrets to spill like Dolores but I needed the happiness part. When this realization hit me I felt like a weight had been lifted off my shoulders. Like I was high. I got a bounce in my step and a smile on my face and did it ever feel good! It wasn't until this revelation that I realized how unhappy I really had been. It was making me sick. I was tired all the time(which also has to do with air pollution obviously), a walking emotional time bomb, snappy with my kids, suffering from chronic nausea and shooting daggers from my eyes at my husband. All this added up to misery.
Now obviously everything is not all peaches and cream. I have to work at this, we all do. For the last week I've had a major setback in the happiness department and am just now trying to dig myself out from under it. This whole next week the kids and I are on our own as K left for Dubai this morning so I am taking time for myself- cleansing, breathing, eating my fruits and veg and remembering to be happy.
I have so many things to be happy for but I got caught up in the negative. This year in China has been an immense learning experience in so many ways and I think everything that I take away from here will become more apparent once we've moved away. A friend had posted on Facebook a while back that China is one of the best places in the world to go for spiritual growth and reflection. I scoffed at that and she said, trust me, you'll be grateful later. The more I think about it the more I think it must be true. If you can handle China, I think you can handle pretty much anything and come out the other side a happier, more patient and compassionate person. I'm working on it. That's all any of us can do.
