I woke thinking about your question, what is happiness to me? I saw through the slats in the shade that the sun had begun to paint the sky a new day but it was not yet time to rise. I pulled the light blanket over my shoulder and rolled onto my side. Is this happiness?

I sat on my couch at the end of the work day, no lists, no worries, no yearning, just me on the couch feeling the warmth of the lowering sun on my neck. I looked around the room, familiar, present but also still. In this moment there are no demands. My lungs expand and I bow to being alive. Is this happiness?

It was still dark when we got to the beach. We could hear the swish of the oars in the channel as the crew chanted their strokes, one solitary light on their bow showing the way. As we walked out onto the sand, wet from the tide, the seals on the rocks began to call to each other in short sharp barks. We walked quietly along the water’s edge until the uphill knee began to complain then turned and headed back. The sky was beginning to lighten over the channel and we could see the tops of the masts making their way to the sea. Is this happiness, I thought?

He walks in the door, six feet five inches, tall, handsome, smiling and bends to give me a hug. Our son, home from a trip abroad, comes to sit in the back yard, eat ratatouille, made fresh with tomatoes from the garden, and share his adventures. Happiness?

I sit at the table, a cup of tea beside me, with my writing book open. The dog sleeps in the bed at my feet. Pen poised. Write what you will, I say. Happiness?

I reach into my purse, the new one you gave me for my birthday. You shouldn’t have. It was too good for me. I hid it in my closet for six weeks now, wondering when the time, the moment, the occasion would warrant such a purse and my fingers touched something disgusting, slimy, and rotten. You had put in a peach, the perfect reminder of our time last summer but I hadn’t opened it, unwilling to allow myself to own such a beautiful thing and now I had ruined it, the silk lining moldy and stained. I burst into tears. Sad and happy, for all the love in my life. I just have to figure out how to take it in.

This contemplation included in Choice Theory Psychology Guide to Happiness by Carleen Glasser Published July 2019