happy!

beautiful day today! sunny and warm. what a treat after last week, which was cold and gray! there was one day last week, tuesday i believe, when everyone i spoke to seemed to be feeling particularly worn out. even sena was sleepy much earlier than usual. i checked the moon, but nothing special was going on, so maybe it was all the grayness.... well, anyway, today is amazing, and i am feeling great, and i have a bit of time to write.

i've been feeling quite elated recently. no particular reason, just the way things are. i love how mundane and how simple my life is. i get overwhelmed, sometimes, with happiness and joy. i don't know what to do with it, so i try to send it out to everyone. i really wish i could share it in a more direct way, but for now i haven't figured out how, except to wish it to everyone else and just to try to be nice in any way i can to the people i come accross. sometimes i really want to tell people that i love them, but i am still fearfull of being misunderstood. but i really do feel a lot of love.

i've never been happy this way in my life before. i've experienced different kind of happiness, don't know how to characterize it, more exotic maybe? exotic in the sense that it was related to things that were not so simple to get, that were challenges of one kind or another.
but the kind of happiness i feel now is a lot simpler. and a lot freer. it's more like a background feeling, rather than a thing to be achieved. maybe it's joy, in the sense that it's not always sweet, but includes sadness as well. this kind of happiness makes me want to bow down low in the dirt and give thanks.

actually, i think i know what it is. i guess in the past, esp when i was in my 20s, i felt happy when i dicovered that i was special in some way or another. like special good looking, or special smart, or some kind of special talent that made me feel good about myself. but that always wore off pretty quickly and i was usually in search of a new high, a new challenge, pretty quickly. this kind of joy i feel now has more to do with the opposite - with realizing that i am nothing special, that i don't have to be, that my life is just so plain, and it's just fine as it is. it has to do with relief at the growing realization that i don't need anything i don't have in order to be happy. it has to do with letting go somewhat of fear and insecurity. maybe it's age. just in the sense that i'm no longer so caught up in my looks or any external stuff (although i still have my bouts with those things). maybe i feel lighter now because i can sit back sometimes and just laugh at myself for being stuck up on one thing or another. these breaks are very welcome.
wow, i didn't expect to write all this, but here it is.

i also wanted to mention this book, but i've been hesitating. it's called "start where you are" and it's written by pema chodron, a tibetan buddhist. over time, i have reached the conclusion that no book will ever solve your problems; neither will anything else - you just need to go through what you need to go through, one day at a time, and you need to discover things at your own pace, over and over again. it's rarely a one shot deal. so for these reasons i now hesitate to recommend anything to anyone....
nevertheless, this book came to me at the perfect time in my life. i feel that it reflects a lot of what i need to hear right now, and it reinforces certain things i need encouragement with. so i thought others might find it interesting too. it's very short and unpretentious, "kitchen-sink" level as the author puts it, yet at the same time very profound. check it out, you might find something that touches you or inspires you in it. or you may not. it's only writing after all - a very poor substitute for what we can learn from rel life experience.

peace