Life's Ambiance

                                        Enjoy the little things, for one day you may look
                                            back and realize they were the big things.
                                                                          ~Robert Brault

I am sitting here this evening at my kitchen table, writing on my laptop. I have a nice PC downstairs with a comfy chair and big desk,  but I like being upstairs in the kitchen for some reason. I do my best writing here. I was pausing for a moment lost in thought, when I started looking around my home, started listening to the going ons in the living room where my husband and stepson are watching football and hanging out. I actually stopped everything I was doing and just took it all in. My home filled with memories, treasures and keepsakes, my family and the general ambiance that is my life. I found myself sighing and smiling all at the same time. I realized how content and happy that I am. Which after the past 34 years, is more of a triumph then I realized til just now. To say that the past couple of years have been 'trying' would be an understatement,  at 34 years old I feel like I have the soul of someone who has lived twice that.  It has taken alot to get to this moment. Alot of tears, loss, struggles and fight. I appreciate those small moments in time when everything is peaceful and more importantly content. I try day by day to trust in these moments, to accept that maybe from now on, this is what will be. But I find that it is hard. When your life has been turmoil for a long time, a sudden reprieve is really hard to trust in. These small moments in time when I can hear my husband yelling at the refs on TV and the laughter of my son at how excited his dad is getting, when I can look around and think of happy memories associated with the belongings we have acquired over the years.  I sigh.

The road to this moment has really never been smooth. More of a dirt backroad, bumpy, rocky, with cliffs on one side and trees on the other. Lots of forks in the road, twists and turns and mountains. With an occasional stretch of smoothness, that usually lead to a serious of switchbacks. The Road of Life. I really wish looking back, I could have had a road map. If only it worked out that way. Of course thinking now, there really isn't anything that I would change, because it made me who I am today, brought me to where I am today and has taught more about myself, others and life, then a smooth road would never have done. I can appreciate what I have right this moment, feel it in my soul, because I know what being without this feels like.

There are  essentials to a happy life, something to do, something to love, something to hope for, something to believe in. Happiness and sadness tend to run parallel to each other. When one takes a rest, the other one tends to take up the slack. But to even come close to being happy you have got to do one thing. You have to make peace with yourself and where you came from. You have to come to terms with everything that has happened to get you to this moment, every tear, every triumph, every trial. You have to consciously work on it. Ignoring it, "forgetting it", burying it, never ever work. Because it is always there, just waiting for that weak moment to come forward again. It takes strength and courage. You have to want it.

The little things ARE the big things in life. A night at home with my family, the laughter of my son, the armchair coaching from my hubby, the coziness and warmth. These little things are what makes me happy and content.

Frederick Koenig said it best when he said....
We tend to forget that happiness doesn't come as a result of getting something we don't have, but rather of recognizing and appreciating what we do have.
 
It is also appreciating all that I have done to get here.

Life's Ambiance..