Amidst a slew of news and happenings over the last week (four of which qualify for the crazy-bad category and four more which simply cannot fit anywhere but in the crazy-good sector)? I look around every day to find myself teary-eyed joyful and teary-eyed sad, usually at precisely the same time (no sequencing afoot) and guess what: I am happy. Period. No matter what.
Fascinating, that. Happiness was never all that big a goal of mine. Since childhood, I’ve always been a lot more focused on the thing I was trying to learn right then. I suppose I went about my first three decades figuring happiness itself to be an odd duck and unhappy if pursued by anyone, but especially me—not at all equipped with duck-hunting genes. About ten years ago, that laissez-faire attitude morphed into near desperation to make a contribution before I die, to do something that would make a good difference for somebody else, to lay myself out and use myself totally, completely up in service to something besides my own personal desires or needs. It became an obsession almost, with every single decision run through the hopper of valuable contribution or no? And it fueled long hours of work toward a path sure to let me do that . . . which turned out to dead-end in a carbon steel-mortared brick wall.
Only having hit it full force, and then having taken a few steps back and knuckleheaded it again at high speed (three of the crazy-bad happenings of the last week forming said wall)? Only then did I raise my weary head and lay one beady eye on forever and erupt in happy laughter at it all. It was as if a great old soul was standing next to me and said, “hannah, when will you ever accept that you do NOT belong in these lines of endeavor?!! Seriously, dear, do we need to break your nose or something next time?!”
And I laughed, and still am laughing today, as miracles and nightmares keep erupting all over, and much of what I thought was solid disappears while stronger firma terra materializes all about and without my least assistance. And in such a space I know that the crazy-bads are honestly not a whit different from the crazy-goods, because when you come down to the puppy’s nubbin on things, I am just a little human being in a great big world. For however long I am breathing, I shall breathe and be to the best or worst of my abilities in that moment, and the second I do not? I know not a smidgen of what comes next. One thing I know for sure: Hell’s already my friend, because love—unconditional, wide hearted, and unceasing—leaches even the worst crazy-bad times of their furies and has proven to me, over and over and over again already, that every hell carries heaven in its innermost heart. So I am happy. Period. No matter what.