Happiness and its loose relationship to things.

I was a young bride. I was carefree and happy. Just the prospect of becoming an adult socially three years after legally becoming an adult was enough to keep me happy for days. I didn’t care who my husband was, if we saw eye to eye with each other, if he was the man I would’ve picked out on my own. I didn’t care. All I cared about was that I had accomplished something in the way of societal goals and it felt so good.

I had no expectations of Adnan. Where he took me for dinner after we got engaged , what presents he brought, how many times we kissed had absolutely no bearing on my happiness. I was happy about finding my idea of happiness. Nothing marred it. Some might call it stupid but to me, I didn’t let an arranged marriage strip me of my vigor and essence.

When we settled into domesticity my happiness remained the same. I had moved to another country and I didn’t care what Adnan did to make me happy. I’m a naturally upbeat person and it takes a ton to bring me down. I didn’t get particularly, irreparably, homesick. I didn’t find anything difficult to adapt to. I found the library and the mall at walking distance. My nieces’ school was across the street. I was happy.

My happiness has never depended on people as opposed to my sadness. My sadness has come from people but my happiness has come from within. My parents remarked on how I was their happy child. A book, food and solitude are all I needed to be happy.

As I grew older, books were replaced by children and hubby, food with cooking and solitude with my patients. Things changed but my happiness has continued.

This isn’t to say that I’m never sad. There’s a lot to be sad about for me. But it doesn’t make me as sad as it might someone else.

This is to say that our happiness doesn’t entirely depend on another person. The revving of our happiness comes from within and then there can sometimes be even a domino effect. Things can set into motion due to the spark of vitality that we bring.

I’ve also cut out many people and continue to do so. I don’t engage with negativity. Not because it brings me down but because it causes me to focus on things that don’t require my attention.

I take the trash out once in a while regularly. It helps with cleansing. I like my life clean. Also because I have never depended on people to start my happiness for me, I don’t want to start now. I realized, at one point in my life, that the constant comparison with some people was causing me to rely on others’ pep-talks a lot. And pep-talks are exhausting. They’re the type of fire that you start but can’t put out. So because I hate pep-talks I cut out the reason that led to the pep-talks.

If you ask my husband he would tell you the same. We have a great relationship but we don’t fully depend on each other to fill our cups. We fill our cups ourselves and sometimes when one is running low, the other one tops it off.