I am happy!

I know happiness is an emotion and can be fleeting.  An ever-moving target... but right now, right this very moment, today - I am happy.  I think I am quite a serious person and have been for most of my life so it isn't something I have felt all my life and although I have had moments of deep happiness - I can probably count them.  I am talking about the happiness that makes you giddy, crazy heart on fire happy, kind of happiness.  Or is that JOY.  Whatever it is,  I haven't always been #brave enough to say it out loud that "I am happy" in case it evades me and I have wanted to silently hang onto those moments because they are mine and I value them so deeply but today I am being #brave and I want to shout it out loud and if it evades me today, I am confident that tomorrow I will continue to seek it out.

What's completely taking me by surprise is that I am finding it in the small things, the simple things at the moment... like going for a run outside this morning before work, with the mountain as my backdrop.  I love it.  I adore my girls' schools so much and seeing them this happy and thriving has healed such a big part of my heart.  I am so grateful that school is in it's rightful place this year... I think for the first time ever.  And I have to tell you - I am loving how that feels right now.  I am loving how choosing simplicity this year as a life choice has brought me so much peace and inner joy.  Uncomplicating the clutter of my life, my schedule and my emotions has truly changed my life on every level.

Peace

It was last year when I was sitting in my art lesson with the paintbrush in hand with the lingering smell of linseed oils... I had such a deep sense of joy in what I was doing and it was a joy that I had never felt doing anything else before... it was then that I knew I wanted to paint fulltime.  I wasn't sure it was possible but I knew it wasn't something I wanted to do once a week anymore.  It was something I wanted to do all the time and it was something I wanted to feel all the time.  I climbed into bed last night after finishing Peace, a little painting I have been working on that I realized I had made some form of art everyday this week.  Making art daily has made my heart deeply happy.  I guess that's how it is meant to feel when you are doing something you love everyday.

I feel like I have found something today.  A truth perhaps... That finding and walking in what we were deeply called to do - brings about a deep sense of joy, a knowing and maybe even a sense of belonging.