I remember when I was unmarried and childless, and I’d come to a point where I realized I actually didn’t want to be either of those things, people—well-meaning people, people who love me—would say, “Just be happy. Enjoy your life now.” And they were right, of course, but that was really hard to do at the time. The days stretched without change, and it seemed I’d never have the things I wanted. Not to mention, there’s time constraints on what I desired. It does, in fact, get harder to find a partner as we get older, and having children, does, at some point, for women at least, cease to be an option. Part of my impatience was a heavy awareness of that, so the advice felt rather dismissive and insensitive.
I don’t know if everyone is like this, but I find it much easier to be patient if I know the ending. If I knew, for instance, that I would meet a partner, if I knew, for certain, that I’d indeed get pregnant and have a child, it would’ve been a lot easier to be patient and enjoy the meantime. But that’s the whole point, right? We don’t get those assurances. We can cultivate the capacity to trust—in life, in God, in the unfolding of time—but nearly everything else is out of our hands. Looking for certainty as a prerequisite to happiness is not only futile, it’s a little insane, and I think, to be honest, I may have been a little mad at the time.
It’s interesting, because it was right before I met my husband, one random evening commuting home from New York City, that I truly began to understand that where we are is where our opportunity for happiness resides. That no money, no job, no relationship—although let’s be honest, contentment in any or all of those areas certainly makes the ride better—works like a magic wand to bring us joy. I remember, perhaps having had enough of suffering, which usually does the trick, making a decision to enjoy my life as a single gal, that at the very least, a joyful appreciation for life could only make me more attractive to a prospective partner, and it would make life worth living. I decided to bloom where I was planted.
The reason so many of us are always searching for happiness, as opposed to living happily, is because, preoccupied as we are with chasing what we want, we don’t register that desire is a hydra: Chop off one head and two grow in its place. When we say things like, Once I’m married I’ll be happy, or, Once I get a better job I’ll be satisfied, or, Once I get the house I want I’ll be at peace, we’re creating a standard that’s always shifting. Because what we want shifts. We get it, then we want something new. We get that, but our appetite for the next thing arises.
We get married, but marriage comes with its own struggles and problems to sift through. Sure, I’m more satisfied now than when I was single; I love having a family and someone to share life with, but to be honest, the complexities of single life have been replaced with the complexities of married life. I left a high-powered, VIP big-city job to finally do what I love, and while this, now, is unequivocally better, it comes with its own struggles, like not having a steady paycheck (or a salary just yet anywhere near to what I was making), like having to solve every single problem by myself while also juggling family life, like having a thousand ideas and only a very small amount of time each day to execute them. It’s great, and I’m grateful, but it isn’t perfect and without its own issues. Now that I’m finally here, a place I dreamt of for decades, I’m already yearning for the next phase, where I have some help, perhaps, and where all the work I do is much more lucrative and widespread. But I try to enjoy the meantime, the perks of semi-anonymity, no employees to manage, the ability to more easily step away for a time if I need to, because I know this is where my happiness is, now.
When my father died rather unexpectedly in my late 20s, it was as if life had upturned a bucket of demons and darkness and dumped it over my head. I had a lot of issues, a lot of emotions, to work through, and it took me a lot longer than I wish it had to find my way to that day where I was light enough, brave enough, joyful enough to walk into a restaurant after missing a train and order a glass of wine, and then strike up a conversation with the handsome Sicilian-American man standing at the bar next to me, dressed sharply, on his way into the city for a night out with his friends. That’s how I met my husband. All those days of waiting and then, a snap of the Almighty’s fingers.
One thing that a lot of suffering can give us is real transformation: That level of pain taught me that I had to find a way out of suffering, and it showed me that one way to do that is to learn how to be satisfied where you are, even as you dream of bigger, and yes, even better, things. I learned that my happiness is right here. Wherever here is. Whatever now looks like.
Right now, I don’t have my ideal home or land as I’d like. I have a really cheesy greenhouse that is made of plastic, that I’ll probably have to throw away at the end of this season because it’s tearing in several places. It’s not even close to the greenhouse of my dreams. But I start seeds anyhow. I plant a garden anyway. I don’t wait for the ideal circumstances because I know that I can start, now, to reap the lessons and joy that come from gardening. I don’t have to wait for perfection, and I don’t have to lament, either, and whine about why I can’t start gardening yet. I don’t have the set up for my chickens that I’d prefer, either, but I’m raising chickens anyway. I’m learning, and they bring me joy. Now. Right where I am.
It’s a dangerous game, the chase for joy, as if it’s something we can catch, as opposed to something we are meant to harvest. We risk trampling the present to get to some future that never arrives, because when we get there, the bar has shifted, out of our grasp, and we are forced to keep reaching and reaching, our hands never filled. I think this is part of what people mean when they say, Money doesn’t buy happiness. They mean, find joy in simple things. The apartment that isn’t the old farmhouse on 35 acres can still bring you joy while you dream of that home, if you tend to it right. Being single is hard in its own way, trust me, I remember, but so is being married, and if we can find joy while we’re still single, searching and dreaming of family life, then we have the key to it all, don’t we? Contentment then, and then, contentment now, too.
Want to know one of my favorite moments of the day? It’s in the morning, when Angelo, my 3 year old, and I slip on our muck boots and head out to the chickens, carrying a bowl of kitchen scraps as a treat for them. We hang out there for a little, the chickens chase him around like they’re playing tag and he cracks up laughing. He dumps the bowl of scraps onto the grass and says, “Here chickie chick chick chicks.” It’s early morning and still kind of quiet.
We’re downstate full time these days, and there’s construction happening all around us, but at this time of the morning, it hasn’t started up yet. This town is getting very crowded, and it isn’t the same as when I grew up here. I feel very claustrophobic; the neighbors can see us from the apartment building across the street and soon, from the enormous one they’re building down the road. It’s hard to find a good spot to snap a beautiful photo. All the angles are crowded and the backdrops far from idyllic. It’s not how I want to live, but it’s where we are, for reasons that I accept and respect, but for a few minutes every morning, I block all that out and take joy in this moment. My son, me, the animals, the laughter. The imperfect perfection of it all. The bar has nowhere to shift to. It doesn’t get better than this. This is it. Right here, now, joy here in front of me, up for the harvest, as long as I have the heart and the hands to lift it toward me. I trust that one day, I’ll walk my way into the home and property of my dreams, and then I’ll have joy there, too. Joy here, now. Then, joy then, too.
Thanks for the reminder 🌷