happy

I was ten years old on Balboa Drive, chasing my sisters down the street because they dared me to.  We were not supposed to leave the court without permission, but Shari and Colleen were feeling naughty and wanted to run from me, screaming.  I took off after them as they did, even though it was nearly dark and I was barefoot.  The wind whipped my hair back and I was laughing and running at the same time. 

I remember this moment because it is a measure of happiness that I remember as one of the happiest in my life.  It is a true blessing to have this as a memory.  It makes me happy just by writing about it.

Happiness is something that humans pursue more than wealth – which is saying something.  It is a more than a feeling, it is a state of mind.

According to Aristotle, the purpose of every human being’s happiness is dependent on their  ability to achieve something which is good. His theory on happiness was that anyone could achieve it through knowledge and good actions – provided that our motivation is pure.

The Bible portrays happiness as a place of safety and peace, accompanied by contentment in knowledge of who you are in relation to who God is.  This happiness is fulfilled by Jesus, the Messiah who brings peace to the world.

In every belief, in most religions, happiness is championed.  It is usually seen as something to be shared, something to be attained and given freely.  Buddha even said, “Thousands of candles can be lighted from a single candle, and the life of the candle will not be shortened. Happiness never decreases by being shared.” 

I have seen the richest people I know be miserable because of circumstances (mainly bitterness and unforgiveness).  We have sat in Sudanese villages where a woman has told us that there is nothing that makes her quite as happy as watching a sunset and smoking her pipe.  

The youngest people seem to figure it out the fastest: happiness is simple. A baby experiences laughter and it raises our spirits; a child realizes that playing outside is perfect with a box or a ball.  

Happiness is simple; it’s amazing how we have polluted it.

Today I will be happy.

I decide to be happy today because I will allow myself to feel the miracle of life around me.  I will seek to share this happiness with others, just because I want to be happier.  I will laugh too loud, be kind to strangers and say hello to someone I don’t know.  I will text my kids and tell them that they are miracles to me.  I will do something for someone else without them knowing.  I will write something beautiful, reach out to a friend and make gorgeous food for my husband. 

And I will be nice to myself.

Will you be happy today with me? 

I dare you.  

tree

I was an adult when I read it for the first time and tears came to my eyes in the bookstore.  It was all Leo Buscaglia’s fault.

I majored in Speech in college and I was captivated by Buscaglia, the man who told the best stories of love and normal family life and finding happiness in a hurting world.  In one of his many talks, he mentioned the name Shel Silverstein and referenced the book that many consider the most poignant of all children’s works.  

I found it in a bookstore and read it in its entirety, loving the illustrations as much as I did the words. 

The book is simple; almost simplistic.  At first glance, there is almost nothing to it.  It’s about a tree (one that instantly takes on human qualities) that can’t move who “loves a little boy” who can.  The boy is a classic boy with non-stop energy and imagination.  He is (at first) the story’s protagonist. 

Things change as the boy grows and he is exposed as a selfish man who thinks only of himself.  Gone is the innocence of his youth where he thinks of the tree as his companion.  Instead of feeling cheated by this strange fact, the reader’s attention turns toward the tree, who loves the boy.  As much as the tree gives, it is she who is happy – never the boy who is receiving everything she can possibly give.

 I read it again today in one scroll down with my mouse.  It was lacking the pictures, but it made me remember.  I remembered my children, freshly bathed snuggling close to me to hear a few books before bed.  Even as an exhausted mother, it was my favorite time of day.  Right after the dinner dishes were finished and the kids were squeaky clean and their hair was damp and their eyes sparkled as they carried their choice of books to me for read-aloud time.  I always wanted them to pick The Giving Tree, my favorite even then.   

The Giving Tree is more than a book; it is a painting of how things work in many relationships where there is one giver and one taker.  It is an invitation for the reader to rethink the concept of happiness, forgiveness and identity.  It is an explanation of how it is possible to love with a special selflessness, remembering the best about our beloveds.  Love, the book tells us, is a wondrous, beautiful thing that costs us everything and makes us happy.

It is seldom the takers who are happy in this world.  I love the book for its reinforcement of this fact.  It does it over and over again with one line.  

And the tree was happy.

new

Before                           After

I remember the moment I realized I was fat.  It was a rude awakening to hear Dave Lamb infer it on “Come Dine With Me South Africa” and I was blown away by his cheekiness.   

I was in a room full of people who were watching the airing of the TV show and cheering me on, even though we all knew I hadn’t won.  At the very end of the show I declared “It’s over!” to which the narrator said “It is now!” as I laughed. 

We have a saying in America – “It’s not over until the fat lady sings.”  I was laughing my melodic laugh, a song on most other days – Most other days where I’m not called fat on nation-wide TV. 

“Does he mean I’m fat?”  I cried out loud  - no one knew what to say.   Not even Mario.

Mario had been in one too many of these situations and it was no-win for him.  He could see I was hurt and just smiled, encouraging me (as did everyone else) that it was a joke about my laugh, not a crack about my weight.   Somehow I got over it, but it always stung  every time I re-watched the episode.  After all, I knew what the narrator meant.

Even after the Come Dine With Me airing, I didn’t change much.  After all, my husband loved me madly; my friends all supported me.  My family was (as always) very supportive of me and wanted me happy, no matter what.  Weight wasn’t important to all of them.

The truth was this: I was overweight.  My husband’s opinion would not change that.  Neither would my family’s or my friends.  After moving back to America, I had to get real with myself.  My personal trainer stayed behind in South Africa and I was at a crossroads in my life. I had to get the weight off -once and for all. 

I did. 

I’ll keep it off, God willing.  I can beat the patterns that got me there in the first place.  I have the ganas, the desire to beat back the death that used to live in my old brain.  I am being transformed; restored.    

It all started with a few truths I had never been ready admit to myself until April 22, 2013.  I wanted to share some powerful truths that caused the change between my ears ; because that’s really where I’ve lost the most weight.

1.  I got honest with myself.

I was overweight by anyone’s standards.  I’ve never put a lot of faith in the BMI charts, but they are a good place to start in determining if you are overweight.  A healthy human adult should weigh a certain weight for the height that they are, unless they are a body builder or a gymnast.  I was neither. 

I was overweight on most days, using most scales, during every season.

The reason I was overweight wasn’t because of my genes.  It wasn’t because I was fifty and had a hysterectomy.  It wasn’t because of my supreme cooking skills or my life of hosting so many people in my home. 

It was because I ate whatever I wanted – when I wanted it. 

I had rules for my overeating and they made sense to me.  I would overeat at parties, on special occasions, on Sundays….  My permission slips to overeat were only surpassed by my “morning-after-regrets” and my disbelief in what the scale said. 

I refused to believe that I had a deeper problem – a terrible feeling of never having enough.  Overeating was only part of the problem.

2.  I learned about food and the power it had over me.

A person who overeats usually has other health concerns.  I had chronic asthma and took my inhaler wherever I went.  I had antacids at my bedside, in the kitchen and near the TV. 

When I decided to follow an eating plan that fed my body instead of my taste buds, I began to nurture a new Janet who lay dormant inside of me.  I watched movies on nutrition.  I shopped for organic produce and fresh whole foods.  I started paying attention to which foods satisfied me most. I measured my portions and became truthful about my serving sizes.  I ate three meals a day and I was honest with myself that that was enough.

The first few weeks I was “hungry.”  Truth?  I was coming off white sugar and white flour.  I was an addict to both – and my addict demanded that I get a fix.  An addict’s least favorite word is no; so I felt my body rebelling by sending signals like “I’m hungry!” 

Most of the time I was “hungry” I was tired -  I needed rest.  I tried to lay down every time I was hungry.  It was excruciating, but I did it.

And then I realized I was an addict, and I was okay knowing that.  I had to start somewhere.

3.  Alcohol had to go.

Alcohol is a food.  It goes into your mouth and is processed by your several systems that keep your body moving.  When I decided to be honest with myself I that included that I would have to be honest about everything that I was ingesting. 

I suddenly was confronted with addictive patterns that didn’t belong in my life.  I had been using food and alcohol to tranquilize my head and heart.  I never processed the pain that was causing my compulsive patterns.   Food I couldn’t eliminate, but alcohol I could.  I gave up the best red wine, the finest martinis and said hello to water.  Tea. 

And I still haven’t said goodbye to Diet Coke.  A friend who has watched my transformation up close suggested that I watch a documentary on aspartame.   I groaned, knowing she was right. 

4.  I had to process sources of pain that caused behavior I didn't want in my life.

Read that again. 

If I had to be honest and weigh and measure my food, AND give up the hooch…. I had to begin a journey into the center of my soul that needed to be repaired.  The journey is exhaustive- and exhausting. 

Still, it’s better than the lifestyle of plastering all the wounds without paying attention to why they are there. 

The funny thing about wounds are that they cause behaviors.  Limping around, favoring  my weak sides, being grouchy when I am tired are only physical signs that something is wrong.  The real wounds people have are deep inside and most of us (if we are honest) don’t have the time to take care of them, or we don’t know how.  Some of us have been taught that if we only believe … if we only have faith that our wounds will heal.

I have learned that I must participate in a lifestyle of taking care of my wounds so that they really heal.  If I do this, I will less likely hurt others that I care about. 

My restart included a lot of honest, humility and reflection.  I had been living a life that discouraged looking within too much.  I had to give myself permission to tend to my own wounds; and I am in process.

5.  I had to be accountable to someone safe.

What would I do without friends?  I have so many who are lovely and loving – they genuinely care about me.   One of my friends offered to be my “bullshitometer” on this journey.  I can squeak past my old friends with my old patterns, but not her. 

She had recently gone through a similar journey herself.  Her journey began with a similar moment of awakening and she was confronted with painful patterns in her own life.  Because of her journey, she can relate to mine.  We both are becoming “filled with sanity” little by little. 

Because of her, I can be honest about my deep emotions and my food battles.  Even sobriety  and self-awareness can’t hold a candle to the beam of the truth that comes from a good friend.  She understands the truth behind the truth.

6.  I have rediscovered God.

Confessions of a missionary? 

In all the years I say I “served God”  I mean this in the most humble way:  I had neglected my true love.  I had been busy doing good things and forgotten about my love. 

My rediscovery has been very personal; very private, but very real.  It hasn’t come with bells and whistles, but with love.  I have had doors open with grace, things drop off of me with love…true love. 

I get shy talking about this, mainly because it is such a personal thing of how we know God.  I spent years running around doing things for Him, even in His name…but now I realize that He wanted only me. 

That’s refreshing.

7.  I have practiced gratitude.

The antidote for the poison of “not enough” is gratitude.  I have learned to be content with slow progress and minor victories. 

While I haven’t had the mounds of pizza and Mexican food that I swore I’d have upon my return to my home country, I have been grateful for raw and organic foods that abound here.  I am grateful for a smile or the sunshine.  I have to remind myself that inhaling and exhaling are gifts I’m not entitled to.  I have chosen to love things that before I would complain about. 

I adore raw red cabbage.  I love raw cauliflower.  I am grateful for beans.  I have a long list of things I cannot believe are mine.  I have to say it over and over again several times an hour.  Thank you, God!  I am grateful. 

The journey has just begun, but I can tell you this:  It has been three months since I started a journey of being nice to myself.  In those three months I have lost thirty pounds (13.6 kg’s).  I have a graveyard of unused inhalers, I don’t even know where Mario keeps the antacids and I haven’t washed a martini glass for three months. 

Instead of feeling deprived, I feel free.  If I were honest, the best reward is being free.  

It almost makes me laugh.  And now no one can say that the fat lady is singing.  

wasps

There were those years of wasps

Paper chewing

Nest building

Accusing

Flying fiends;

Laughing in my face

Invoking fear and

Magnifying their threat to my life

Now

There are pools of honesty on all sides

Laughter and sobriety

Revelation…..

And you say there is grace

Forgiveness enough

To go around;

Lies that will evaporate without a sound?

I wish the years of wasps

Never were

Rather than my recent

Past exposing my fear

And I wish they all

Could forgive me

For all the years

I ran from them.

I wish….

wild

        

Remember the days of big skies

And red dust walks

Where we lingered in the wild unknown

Of God and men

So unfamiliar?

Those days when

(before they were cut from

The shore like ice

To float away from us)

We loved hard and

It bounced back to us?

Remember?

You joined them

And I was left behind-

Like a useless appendage

Encouraged To knit….

or something

Else creative

In their normal scheme of things.

Those days when I broke out

And left the place of safety for the thirsty

Hungry friends

Who wanted to hear what He put inside of us.

Finally. 

Remember the moist tension

At night

Before the days of cool air

Were pumped in?

And the summer heat

Stood knocking;

Unable to cross the moat of

Our walls of plenty?

Distant tribal calls are whispers now

Now we wait

Like breathless children –

Dripping with sweat from our play.

Wait for God

To show us

The wild unknown

Of here.

watermelon

A bundle of pink flesh

Inside the green rind

Water-filled sweetness, 

Glowing without-

One interruption

To disturb my knife.

A preference realized to remove the seeds;

To usher them into extinction

All for convenient slicing....

I look, and remember-

The dirty fields behind Grandma’s house,

Where the old stuff

Went walking with us.

We wound up our tongue

And spit them-

The furthest.  

Later the seedlings

Would appear:

Doomed to die of thirst

Without a gardener.

Now  doomed to die from within...

For me.

So my knife won’t be interrupted

Welcome home.  

restoration

Today our stucco contractors mixed sand and cement and slapped it on the side of our house making me very happy.  It’s called a scratch coat, and it is the first step in a long process to finish the exterior of our new home. 

Hester when we bought her.

We've named our house Hester – after Hester Prynne, the longsuffering heroine of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter.  She, like our house, was the misunderstood heroine who sinned in a community where sin was not allowed.  Our Hester is the "ugliest house on the block" - we are in the process of bringing back her natural beauty.  Our neighbors are very grateful.  

Our house is the victim of long-term neglect. She was owned by someone who did nothing to keep her up for the last 25 years or so.  By the time we bought her, she was falling apart.

Restoration is not easy.  It takes time and each step is little by little;  I hate little by little!  This process has been a good lesson for me to remember that God transforms us from a run down, misunderstood victim of abuse and neglect into a restored version that is even better than before.  

This process is expensive, and it sometimes doesn't feel worth it. 

Today, though…it feels worth it. 

The mud of the scratch coat is the culmination of many steps - making the house habitable for us.  

Making it a suitable home.  

The outside used to be vinyl siding - underneath it was old stucco and underneath that was untreated wood that had rotted.  The bottom half had to be rebuilt with treated wood.

The siding did not survive... gladly.

The inside was pretty dated - complete with mis-matched tiles and the most hideous cabinets I had ever seen.  

Before                    After

We have been back since March 15 -nearly four full months.  In that time I have reconnected with family and began the process of rebuilding relationships.  

This is not done all at once.  It’s little by little as well.  I’ve also learned about humility, forgiveness, and grace on new levels. 

I have spoken aloud my gratitude many times…how grateful I am to be in the process of being restored. 

I have gotten honest with myself – dropped a lot of weight (mostly in my head) and learned all over again the importance of God’s Word.  I also have rediscovered GRACE – did I say that?  Of course I did…I did rediscover grace again. 

Websters defines grace as: unmerited divine assistance given to humans for their regeneration or sanctification;  a virtue coming from God. 

Me and Hester – getting restored.