Happiness

First:

Listen to this song and read the words along with it and just think about what it's trying to say:

Happiness is just outside my window
Would it crash blowing 80-miles an hour?
Or is happiness a little more like knocking
On your door, and you just let it in?

Happiness feels a lot like sorrow
Let it be, you can’t make it come or go
But you are gone- not for good but for now
Gone for now feels a lot like gone for good

Happiness is a firecracker sitting on my headboard
Happiness was never mine to hold
Careful child, light the fuse and get away
‘Cause happiness throws a shower of sparks

Happiness damn near destroys you
Breaks your faith to pieces on the floor
So you tell yourself, that’s probably enough for now
Happiness has a violent roar

Happiness is like the old man told me
Look for it, but you’ll never find it all
But let it go, live your life and leave it
Then one day, wake up and she’ll be home
Home, home, home

I just had this really intense blog about happiness and myself and I lost it and I'm so mad. I'm gonna try to write it again, but it won't be half as good.

Two months ago, this time, I knew exactly where I was heading. I had it all planned out, over the course of the next two to three years, but more specifically this summer. Work, Save, Support the missionary. It was solid, engraved in stone for a while, and I never doubted nor questioned what I was going to be doing this summer.

I guess it's safe to say that things are going a lot differently then I thought they would be. Things have changed pretty drastically. I've been thrown really off balance as a result. The last two months have been incredibly hard for me, because I haven't know what to do with myself. Everything that I had planned on being solid has fallen apart and I've been left in a very empty and confusing place while trying to reorganize myself and figure out where to go from here. I've felt like some of my identity was missing, and I've trying to regain my sense of self. It's been challenging. Every time I felt like I was finally getting somewhere, finally understanding myself, something happened that put me back three or four steps and I was nowhere. I know that progress always involves backtracking, but for a time, I backtracked so much that I felt like I was permanently going backwards.

I do know that I'm tired of not going anywhere. I'm tired of being off balance and I'm ready to find direction again. I've realized that although the path I thought I would be walking down this summer is no longer the road that I am on, it doesn't mean that I should stop moving forward. I am on the path that I am meant to be on and I should do everything in my power to make my journey worth while. For the first time in my life, I've fully realized that this. is MY life. It is up to me and me alone to do what I want with it. My choices, my mistakes, my learning experiences. I am the painter of my own masterpiece; I am my own symphony. I don't need anyone else in order to live my life and to do the things that I want to do. I've been trying really hard to find happiness on my own lately. I realize that this is something I need to do. I need to learn how to rely on myself more then anything. It's been really challenging and hard, especially since I've been relying on someone else for all of my happiness and contentment over the last six months. 

And although I've been having these epiphanies, they are all easier said then done. It's been a challenge realizing these things and then trying to work with them. Like I said earlier, progress involves backtracking to some degree. I tend to backtrack a lot.

This summer is going to be about working on myself, improving my weaknesses, making plans and goals to accomplish and loving who I am. I want to be the best Chelsie Caroline that I can be. I want to make goals and plans that are for me and accomplish them for myself. I always thought that putting myself before others was selfish, but there comes a point where you have to take your life by the reigns and take care of yourself. And now this is my time to do that. 

So here are some of my goals for working on myself this summer:

1. Work on being Selfless, especially when it comes to my family

2. Attitude. Always try to be positive. Every unhappy situation that comes around, try to find the silver lining. 

3. Being Active. Stop laying around and sleeping because I feel like I'm going nowhere. I am going somewhere

4. Don't believe in limitations. Accept that I need to make adjustments, but do not look at them as limitations. I am not limited.

And here are the goals/plans I want to accomplish this summer:

1. Work as hard as possible and save as much as possible so that I can be as financially secure as possible when I am back out West

2. Take Hamilton out to school.

3. Eat healthier and work out. Lost some weight.

4. Play my flute more often so I am ready for flute chior in the fall

5. Read.

I don't want to give myself too many goals because I don't want to be overwhelmed. I feel like all of these are do-able and that I can accomplish them (with the exception of Hamilton, because that situation is up to my father more then me). I want to fulfill my goals and plans and prove to myself that I can do this and that I don't need anyone else but myself to have a reason to move forward. It's me and the world now. 

Back to happiness. I've been on this long quest the last two months trying to find my own happiness, because everything that made me happy or fueled my happiness no longer exists. I've really wanted to learn how to be happy on my own, because I hate being sad. Life is too short to be sad when there are so many miracles happening around us every day.

The song that I posted is called Happiness by The Fray, who I had the amazing opportunity to see live in concert on Sunday. I hadn't heard this song before the concert and it really took my breath away. I've really listened to the song and read over the lyrics a lot and this is what I got out of it:

People tend to look too hard for happiness. They find happiness in certain things, such as an object or a companion. During the relationship, whatever kind it may be, the happiness fills their lives and almost blinds them from everything else. And when that relationship ends, the person is left with nothing at all. In the end, we need to learn how not look too hard for happiness, because sometimes it is forced and it will almost always result in heartache. If we just live our lives, happiness will find it's way to us on it's own and one day we will wake up and realize that we are happy.

I don't know if that made any sense.

But I've been living life the last few days and taking it as it comes and I've been happy. I've all of a sudden seen so many things that I've been blinded by with my grief and pain.

to name a few:

-The way my sisters smile after I promise to braid their hair

-The carefree attitude my mom has when she is hanging out with us

-The comfort of having my best friend next to me

-Driving down windy roads that are super green from all of the rain in my favorite car

-Listening to new music with my dad and seeing his face when he realizes I know what bands he is talking about

-Making homemade jamba juice and sharing it with my sisters

I've found a lot more, but I'm getting tired and want to wrap this up.

I've been enjoying my life the last few days and observing the many little things that surround me. And I'm finally starting to figure out how to be happy again and on my own.

Understand that it will take time and I will back track once in a while, but I guess this is a step in the right direction. 

I have plans and goals and I'm starting to be happy again. 

Also. My blog structure has fulfilled it's purpose. It has given me some guidelines while being so lost and confused over the last few months. But now that I am really starting to move along, it's time to give my blog a little creative freedom and write whenever I want about whatever I want.

Except I think I will keep Tempo's of Thursdays. 

Just Saying.

THESE are my thoughts,

and this..

is my prayer.