This feels like home to me...

"it's less important to have many pleasant experiences than it is to have fewer unpleasant experiences, because people have a "negativity bias"; our reactions to bad events are faster, stronger, and stickier than our reactions to good events. In fact, in practically every language, there are more concepts to describe negative emotions than positive emotions"-'The Happiness Project

Reading a book. I'm actually reading a book... I must be in a good mood... its called 'The Happiness Project' by Gretchen Rubin. What better timing to read this than now. If you know anything about me, you know I'm not a reader (unlike my mom who would have this book and probably another, read in a day or two) so the fact that I have even an ounce of motivation to lift up a book that is more than 300 pages, it must be about child abuse and remarkable children stories of growth after disaster, my sisters keeper, and/or self help books I guess. Reading, its not so bad... I love a book that makes me cry or that I can relate to, and this is definately one that I can relate to! We're not all the same, and our happiness is not all the same, but we all strive for similar things, successful, healthy, happy... however we define that, we want to be happy!!

For a long time, I hadn't had a place that felt like home. I did and I didn't. The house I grew up in, I was very fortunate to move back in with the attempt to start my own life with him and his daughter and perhaps make a family of our own. It was a wierd feeling for a long time, living in the house I grew up in, but not having my mom, dad or brothers there too. It was a feeling I just couldn't describe...as time went on, it become more and more mine, but knowing that we'd never have the money to buy it, did it really feel like my own? I could decorate any way I wanted, replaced lights and hardware to update with the times...but at the end of the day, it just wasn't the same. With a house, renting or owning, comes a whole lot more responsibility, bills, and cleaning to do! I am the type of person whether it be how I was raised or what have you, but I like things to get done, and had a hard time waiting for things to be done that I asked, so why not do it myself...stress! lots of stress, numbers going through my head with bills, making sure his daughter had enough clothes, shoes, food....it was never ending! I was too young for this, it was too early in the relationship for me to feel the way I had been feeling...Partnership: the state or condition of being a partner; participation; association; joint interest. Yah, the honeymoon period was long over with, but why all the responsibilities on me, even if I am the "do it" person...leaving when I did was the best thing I could have done for myself.

A friend asked me the other day when we were talking about "the one" and weddings and what have you... if I believed in just knowing when you know, getting that feeling that indescribable feeling you get when you just know that this is the person you are supposed to spend the rest of your life with...I reflected in which I have had a lot of time to do since October 2009, I thought I was ready, I wanted him to be the one because the desire for a family and to just get on with my life was in the forefront. He proposed because I wanted him to, who wants to be proposed like that afterall anyways? Hows that oldies but goodies song go... "you can't hurry love, you'll just have to wait..." And I was sick of waiting, so I rushed it.

This feels like home to me. I finally feel like I'm home, a feeling I haven't had since the cottage when it was just me and Russell (my pup) and when I was living at home before I even knew what living on my own was like! After all the yardsales, the craigslist ads and donating of more than half of all that I owned.... I haven't felt so alive and relieved and refreshed. I thought I would be a whole lot more emotional when selling all my stuff, probably about 3/4 of my stuff, stuff collected from old relationships, and just being a girl living on my own collecting stuff! It's amazing how quickly "stuff" piles up!! Ah, refreshed!! Less is more! I have everything I need and then some.

"Is it always this clean when I'm not home?" ha! As much as I hate being away from you, it has given me great appreciation for all that I have and all that I have been through. As the quote above says, I have experienced first hand, that we do give more attention, stronger emotions and sticky feelings that we just have a really hard time getting over...getting over the bad, remembering the bad. This time away from you has given me time to appreciate the bad experiences but move on from them and truly appreciate my strengths, where I've been, but where I am at now, with more freedom than ever to express who I am, my feelings for those I love, and that it's ok to be happy! It's ok to put my happiness first! "I just couldn't pass you up..for whatever reason" We don't always need to know the reasons, just know in our heart if this is how we feel, we must act upon those feelings, living without regret or what if's and wonder. The days are long, but the years are far too short.

Worries and fears of the unknown, we all have them, but we need not have them hold us back in what could be the biggest decisions of our lives. I am a better person for this, and I know that I will be a mom and have a family of my own with the one I love when the time is right...

"To be happy, it first takes being comfortable being in your own shoes. The rest can work up from there. the hardest situation to stay happy in is when you're trying to find love and yourself at the same time...happiness is being able to wake up and just know that this is what you wanted, and not what somebody else wanted"