To Be Aware of Happiness: The Closing of Another Grand Chapter

A sign, in a window, downtown Charleston.

Right now I’m reading a book called Delicious!. The author is Ruth Reichl, the famous foodie and editor-in-chief of Gourmet magazine. The book has received mixed reviews, but for me this is a summer novel (a rare treat), and I am thoroughly enjoying every page of it. It is actually the book that my book club is reading (hello Swain School moms!), chosen by the hostess of the month (hello Andrea!), and I’m missing this month’s get-together with my good friends because I’m here in South Carolina. Here’s my favorite quote from the book so far (I’m about 2/3 of the way through it) ~

“How lucky I was to be aware of happiness. Most people don’t recognize their own good fortune until it has departed. And then it is too late.”

Above photo: I snapped this from my beach chair, as I sat at the edge of the water yesterday, at Hunting Island beach, watching my dear little ones (growing so fast to be big ones), as they played in the waves. I sat there, just me in my bathing suit, with nothing but my camera, the sun soaking me, and I absorbed the moment. I felt it — like, really felt it — the happiness that it was. The profound and deep happiness of that moment.

I am so lucky. I can be —and often am— fully aware, fully present, to savor my happiness. I can recognize happiness when I experience it. I live my life fully, knowing that life is too short, understanding that everything is short-lived, and aware that we only live once. Nothing should be wasted. I recognize my good fortune, my privilege, my luck, and I also recognize the hard work — hard work on so many varied levels — hard work that is daily and in the minutia of living, and hard work that is huge decisions at big forks in the road, and hard work that is numerous multi-layered sacrifices made in small and big ways.

Sitting there, watching them, in the moment of this glorious summer, I allowed myself to feel it fully. I got choked up, then started crying, tears of joy, sitting there in that beach chair. The salt water, the salty breeze, the salty tears, all mixing together. It was, and is, a profound happiness. I just felt it, and clicked the camera, hoping to get a shot that would allow me, someday, to remember.

Braydon and I have worked so hard for what we have. This is not just in the traditional sense of “hard work” (our jobs, our careers, many years of strategic navigating), but also in the arenas of emotional work, psychological work, relational work. We have done the work that is involved in forging a life that travels off the beaten path; the work of choosing an unusual lifestyle; the work of plowing ahead in the face of challenges and challengers, failures and naysayers, histories and personal dramas. There is no such thing as a charmed existence. Behind the scenes, maybe years in the past, were decisions made and strategies employed and lots of stuff that was hard. That moment for me, there on that beach with my bambinos, was 20+ years in the making.

We are also extremely lucky that we were both born to privilege. We have maximized our advantages, and we have tried hard to use our privilege wisely. We have never taken our unearned advantages for granted. We have always tried to be careful with how we employ the advantages that we have.

It is an unexplainable mixture of hard work and pure luck and structural circumstances that explains where we are in our lives right now — living the life that we are — a life that we’ve built, from the ground up, despite the odds that have —oftentimes, and in many ways — been against us. We’ve built it from nothing but a dream in our minds. And it is a dream come true.

With the right circumstances, and some luck, what you dream in your mind can — sometimes — be built in your life. It just might take decades to get there. And it will often feel like you are in the dark trenches with no end in sight.

But then, you’re sitting on the beach one day and there it all is right before your eyes.

As our time in South Carolina comes to a close I feel desperate to preserve the memories, the moments, the precious fleeting feeling of pure and extreme happiness. This is the closing of another grand chapter.