neither here nor there

you know what the awesome thing is? i'm happy. this is especially awesome because life is never what you (i) want it to be, and i'm happy anyway.

have you ever been the kind of happy that you don't know where it comes from? that's how i am, and even though i know where it comes from (God is goodness and goodness is all around), it feels mysterious and miraculous anyway because i don't understand how and when it gets inside me. it's not while i sleep because i wake up grumpy and gruntled (i'm using this word incorrectly in protest because it should not mean what it means) from chronic bad dreams. it's not while i'm in the shower singing 90s songs that weirdly come to mind every morning. it could be (depending on the day) while i'm crushing fruit in my new blender (today, i had a delirious thought that i would come home and cook frozen chicken in my blender. obviously, i really look up to that blender.) but somehow, the happy sneaks in and i laugh out loud while i'm driving to work even though i'm tired and worried about the people i love and wondering about the people who love me.

when mom died, i just didn't think i could be happy during sad. i didn't think the resurrection was for now. i didn't think spring could be my season, but every year i melt a little more and this year i felt downright puddly. it is so nice that i don't get to only be blessed by things i understand.

for most of my life, "happy" has not been one of the first words people have used to describe me. ("you mean that happy child?" "that's no happy child--that's SID!") i've spent a ridiculous amount of time trying to figure out if i could become authentically "sweet" having been born a cynic, and i've concluded that i can't. jello can never be creme brulee (that's for you sis). lizzie can never be jane.


but happy is for all of us. this i believe.

i am so young in front of my life, which, though it is one of the reasons for being happy, reminds me often that i don't know it all or even most of it. i really want you to know that i believe in unhappy as a valid season of life. i'm just grateful for the springs too. i can't see down my path, but looking around me, chances are high that there will be rises and falls. i hope this happy will come with me.