{"id":3840,"date":"2015-07-19T19:04:00","date_gmt":"2015-07-20T02:04:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/?p=3840"},"modified":"2015-07-19T19:04:00","modified_gmt":"2015-07-20T02:04:00","slug":"happiness-is-juneau-alaska-07152015","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/?p=3840","title":{"rendered":"Happiness Is \u2013 Juneau, Alaska \u2013 [07\/15\/2015]"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Woman<\/a>

Woman walking on train rails<\/p><\/div>\n

You are a true wizard now as you always wished. Does it make you happy?<\/em><\/p>\n

Well, men don\u2019t always know when they\u2019re happy but\u2026I think so<\/em><\/p>\n

~ The Last Unicorn<\/em><\/p>\n

There was a time that I didn\u2019t think I would ever really know what happiness was. Not real happiness, the happiness that comes with being basically fully accepted by the world \u2013 or rather, figuring out that the world is never going<\/em> to fully accept you, and that you have to stop caring <\/em>whether or not it does. You have to be comfortable in your own skin.<\/p>\n

The kind of happiness that lets you dance in the rain while you\u2019re waiting for the train to arrive. It comes on you unexpectedly, like that long awaited tropical rainstorm after a drought. Suddenly there is light where there were shadows, and you realize that your life has hit balance; and you\u2019re okay with that, and whatever changes the future may bring \u2013 because the future always brings changes \u2013 you\u2019re pretty sure you\u2019re going to be okay with that too; because you\u2019re tired of living in fear that something is going to come along and take away what you\u2019ve earned, tired of believing that you\u2019re not worth contentment, tired of worrying that everything is too good to be true. Because for the first time in your life, the ever-shifting ground actually feels solid<\/em> under your feet.<\/p>\n

Happiness for me in the past has been a pie-crust promise, easily made easily broken, a fleeting temperamental thing that has too often proved impossible to catch and properly hold on to, but now\u2026now I\u2019m learning different.<\/p>\n

Happiness isn\u2019t the big things. It\u2019s not the perfect job or the perfect partner or the perfect salary. Most people realize far too late that there is no such thing as perfection.<\/p>\n

Happiness is the smallest things; it\u2019s having someone that knows you well enough to know what to order you for supper after a long day, who knows how you take your coffee in the mornings and when you need it, it\u2019s having a boss who trusts you enough to let you do your job without riding you, it\u2019s making the time to flip through a few pages of a good book. It\u2019s silly things like an extra toothbrush. It\u2019s being able to look in the mirror and realize that \u2018yes, this is my life, and it\u2019s a really<\/em> good life\u2019. That<\/em> is the fairy tale, that<\/em> is the happy ending\u2026even though in reality, there is nothing in life but beginnings.<\/p>\n

I laid the train tracks to my own personal Vienna long before there was a train in sight that could make the trip; and I more often than not have stumbled my way along them rather than walked, I\u2019ve felt the metaphorical iron callousing the soles of my feet; but I had a train to catch, so I kept walking; holding my arms out like a tightrope walker, or a child walking on the lip of the sidewalk\u2026<\/p>\n

And you know something? It was worth it\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

You are a true wizard now as you always wished. Does it make you happy? Well, men don\u2019t always know when they\u2019re happy but\u2026I think so ~ The Last Unicorn There was a time that I didn\u2019t think I would … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[3,4,80,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3840","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-alaska","category-below-the-waterline","category-northern-exposure-2015","category-reflections-below-the-waterline"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3GtNE-ZW","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3840","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3840"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3840\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3842,"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3840\/revisions\/3842"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3840"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3840"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3840"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}