So This Is How My Life Went

I wasn't always like this.  I used to be fun.

At age 23, Thursdays meant one thing: WeHo!  I dressed.  I looked fierce. So did the boys.  Really.  We'd pick up a friend in Long Beach, and zip off to Mickey's or The Hollywood Athletic Club (my fave).  We danced all night.  We cut smoke breaks short when a good song came on (this was at the height of N'Sync and Brittney, and it was so good). We ate at Jerry's Famous Deli.  We got home at 3.  We listened to Toni Braxton remixes for the warm-up and Celine for the cool-down.  We sang.  We laughed.  We'd leave for work by 8 or 9 the next morning and do it again, in some way, the next night.

Ten years later, I look at my life and marvel that my former self still resides in this older body.  Sometimes I still feel the weighlessness of that young person, on the brink of life and love exploding into possibility, but reality keeps my feet firmly on the ground.  I've made choices since then, taken on new responsibilities, created a much more complicated life than my uber-awesome work-friends-sleep dream.

The question I ask is this: "How happy am I?"  I see people my age and older without children and a mortgage.  I know some who genuinely do not want these responsibilities.  Then I consider the story of my life had we made different choices.  What if we'd decided to move to a nicer apartment instead and just continued renting?  What if I'd ignored my maternal drive and just lived to travel?  Could we have been happier if we'd decided to do that instead of this?

The answer is always yes.  Absolutely.

The answer is also no.

I compare some recent photos to those from just 5 years ago and notice creases around my eyes.  Dave's hair is more salt and less pepper.  In some photos, we just look tired.  Like life is making us tired.  Yet those physical markers may be symptomatic simply of our years, not our experience.  What about our experience, then?  Has life worn on us, leaving us hollow shells of our former selves?  Sometimes I feel pieces of the old me dwelling within, yet they seem disengaged from my everyday life.  There is simply no room right now for a free-spirited, impulsive, independent young woman in the life of a mother and wife.

Or is there?  Can I connect my selves, my fiercely independent, free-spirited, impulsive self with my please-brush-your-teeth-please-clear-your-plate-please-get-dressed-please-don't-put-your-fingers-in-the-hummus self?  Is there a place, either mental or physical, that I can go to embrace these two me's?

Yes.  It's called Disneyland.

Alexandria and I have annual passes, and we've gone about once every month that our pass allows.  It is there that I can be silly.  I can be impulsive.  I can dance, scream, and laugh to my heart's content, all the while being my child's mother.  For hours I exist as as my truest self, untouched by outside worries, unphased by far-off concerns.  It really is the Happiest Place on Earth, because I can't seem to recall the stresses that keep me so worried.  It's like being immersed in a jar of pure joy. (Hint to any family members reading: renewing our passes would be an excellent birthday or Christmas gift)

So, maybe I don't need the 23 year-old me all the time.  There's a lot of things I don't like about her.  She was not driven.  She had little or no direction.  She was fun, but irresponsible.  She drank too much and ate relatively unhealthy food, except when she was in training for a big sports-type thing.

If I'd stayed in that moment, that perpetual cycle of work-friends-sleep, I can imagine being happy.  I imagine I would set goals and reach them with relative ease by building an achievement schedule around work and social time.  I see travelling with Dave, filling time and spending money because we'd have enough of both.  I'd buy stuff for our apartment, and then decorate, and then redecorate.  We'd have our cat.  We'd be happy.  I cannot imagine, however, being satisfied.

While being tired because my baby woke up at 4:30 am does not make me happy, the satisfaction of being the person he needs, and then getting through the next day, compares with little else.  I take tremendous pride in my life, my achievements as a wife and mother.  The extras I accomplish, the projects with Alexandria and Marcus, pursuing a hobby, attempting a new career, writing about my deepest insecurities for all 20 of you to read, fill me with something other than pride.  They simply fill me.  In all of this, I am fulfilled.

So when I ask, "How happy am I?", the answer may not matter.  I may be filled with happiness one day, and thoroughly unamused the next.  But those feelings are temporary.  They may inspire me to make a small change in one aspect of my life, or thrill in another.  But the resounding constant in my life is satisfaction.  Seeing through a commitment I made to raise people, love them, and nurture them causes all other achievements to pale in comparison.  I am satisfied every day, sated by the complexity of experiences life continues to give me.