Some Moments

Some moments fill me with such uncontainable joy, it seems like a sort of miracle that I landed in this life. 

I don't want to paint the life I've led up until this point as a great tragedy or soap opera.  It wasn't.  It's had its good luck and tragedy and joy and love and loss...the same things that make up most of our lives.  There are some very low points that may have verged on disastrous, but it the end were not.

But as I stand at the beginning of my 30's, married to my first love, mother to one with another on the way, I can confidently say I have never been happier.  And I am surprised by that fact.

Why, surprise?  Well, I guess I had bought the line that we are often sold that means that happiness=great material wealth and 'success' in a career that would bring me esteem by many. I also now wonder if I haven't spent much of my life depressed and not known it. (For the record, no great material wealth befalls me and the civil service is not a place to seek a great and illustrious career)

But now, and for much of the last few years...though I have bad days or weeks and there are challenges that present themselves to me, I often recognise a quality in myself I didn't think I'd ever see.  Deep and fundamental happiness.

While I could list you all of the things that make me so, the truth is, you know them already.  But the things are always there, its the moments, peppered throughout my days that bring them clearly into focus.

- It is Ellis waiting for ages on the front stoop for a taxi to come...they are magic, you know.

- It is listening to this song and remembering last night's fantastic Crooked Still gig. (beware it has a long lead-in, but is worth the wait) Download 13 Come On In My Kitchen (R. Johnson)

- It is Kevin feeling the baby move for the first time after weeks of his attempts

- It is spending a lovely afternoon with a new friend, drinking tea and playing with a small boy

- It is sitting with a cup of tea and knitting while Ellis and Kevin laugh.

Little moments of joy.  Perfect and precious. 

And so, I ask you what are your moments of happiness?