I've made a decision that has made my life infinitely better.
I've decided to stop waiting. For years I have always looked forward and said: “I’ll be happy when…”. Guess What? “When” never happened.
When the kids are older…, when I stop breastfeeding…, when life is perfect… I’ll do this, that and the other thing and I’ll be happy.
Well a good friend of mine told me “life is what happens when you’re busy making other plans”. And that is so true.
This hit me strongly when I got my diagnosis. I knew that I could get genetic testing, but I held out waiting for the right time. Waiting for the right time to make the decision ended up in the decision being made for me. This was a huge wake up call. So for the last year I have stopped waiting (well not so much all of last year as my brain was kind of fried as I went through chemo, gosh golly I could barely even pick up a book and read a sentence never mind have cohesive thoughts about my future. The most important thing I took hold of was my happiness. I chose to not depend on anyone or anything to be happy. Each day I wake up and put a smile on my face and embrace the amazingness of each moment. I am now choosing to look at each interaction I have with a calm reflection (well not always, I’m still human). I have few expectations of others, other than that they be responsible for their own actions and emotions. I am not my brother’s keeper, or my partners, or my co-workers. I am the keeper of my children though, but I do not rule over their emotions. They must walk their journey and figure out life much as I did. What I can do is be the guide, and I can only be a guide to happiness if I live in happiness.
I am embracing all of my relationships and doing my part to maintain peace. To look less critically at others, and if I find I am being critical I turn the table back to myself and ask myself, “what is it about my own behavior that is so different that those I am being critical about”? Often enough with self-reflection I see that what I abhor in others I am coveting in myself. I am defending my right to behave in the same manner of which I am being critical of others.
Out of all of this I have learned that waiting for any external force to create my happiness is a waste of time. I wait no longer. I embrace my happiness and I embrace the part of me that accepts all around me. I hold no judgments. I am just letting be. I do not need to fix anyone or anything to maintain my own happiness. I just need to always hold the mirror up to myself and hope that I see my calm and happy self reflected in others .
