That Way Happiness Lies
She Called This Idyllic.
Maybe it's a very obvious name for a collection of images and words such as this. Perhaps it conjures up thoughts of wonderful sunsets and beautiful desert islands to some, but that is (mostly) not what I intended this place to be about. To me, this blog is about seeing the beauty that surrounds us in the normal world and finding pleasure in the everyday.
For that way happiness lies.
The title works well for me without sunsets or desert islands, although you may find one or two featured at some stage. But it does have a significant meaning that I will try to explain.
It is almost a year ago to the day that I used these words as a title on a post in my previous blog (www.elusivesenseofhappiness.blogspot.com). It feels such a long time now but it is only just under twelve months. It came during what was a challenging and difficult year as I was looking for ways to find happiness whilst dealing with family trauma. My wife was trying to cope following surgery and treatment for cancer and her physical and emotional recovery became the most important aspect of our lives. I started the old blog as a way of recording some of the feelings that I was experiencing and at the time it had a value. I subtitled it “a search for humour and kindness in a world of cancer, tears and fears” and it proved to be an accurate description.
My wife did not want to be defined by her disease. She fought every attempt to make her a “cancer survivor” and wanted to be considered just a normal person, without the sympathy and concern and fuss that went with her illness, although she obviously appreciated the kindness that people showed her. But despite her, and our, best attempts, we seemed to find the happiness that we had enjoyed before the illness a little bit hard to rediscover. No surprise at all and something that we both wanted to work on.
I also wanted to share what it felt like to be the solid, reliable, dependable and, hopefully, good person that was expected to manage the tears and fears, anger and frustrations of a partner that was finding life tough.
It makes me feel a little selfish when I read those words now, but at the time I believed that it could help me to cope with the emotional stresses that I seemed to be surrounded by.
The posts on the blog will tell you that there were good times. But I also tried to share some of the challenging moments and use the writing process to try to help me understand what was happening and why.
So, in late June of last year, we travelled to Cornwall. The few weeks before this holiday had not been easy and we had found life difficult and full of negative emotions. We had both hoped that a change of scenery would enable us to forget about those issues and find some positivity and enjoyment again.
Thankfully, it worked.
It was a simple holiday in a little cottage in the countryside, close to the sea. We had a wonderful week. We relaxed. We talked. We rediscovered just when we needed to, that happiness comes from a simple appreciation and acceptance of life as it is. This can be difficult to see when caught up in the emotional turmoil of everyday life. But we found it in calm and beautiful surroundings in Cornwall.
My wife did not want to leave. She called that week idyllic and in such a simple way that's exactly what it became. So as title's go, it means a lot to me. There were sunsets, but it was about so much more than that.
She Called This Idyllic.
It was my, our, moment to find a positive connection once again with the world that surrounds us and it allowed us to appreciate our lives for what they are.
