Using My Happy

The first time I heard that phrase was when a friend of mine posted it on Facebook. He was refusing to let some random stranger piss him off and cause him to have a bad day. He said he was going to "use his happy". Bear in mind, this man is a minister and has all the patience and compassion you would expect from a man of God. He is full of love for the Lord and love of the Lord. I can hardly think of a time when he can't immediately flip his switch and use his happy. After I read this I declared from then on I would try to use my happy. I didn't really think about what that meant in its entirety at the time. I had relegated its use to the times I had to interact with my neighbor, dealing with the senseless drones driving the streets of Oklahoma City, or people who don't believe in good customer service. I had not considered that maybe it needed to be applied in my everyday life. I don't remember exactly what led to my epiphany, I had already endured so much in my relationship. I can tell you it was a combination of things, one of which being a picture I'd seen of Eva and Tony Parker. Obviously at the time they were a young happy couple still behaving like newlyweds. What caught my attention was the way Eva looked at Tony. Every time I saw a picture of the two of them, she was always looking at him with so much love in her eyes it just jumped off the page and grabbed my heart. Then I would go interact with my "Tony Parker" and after a while I realized, I didn't feel that way. There was no love or admiration in my eyes. It was just dead. If the eyes are the windows to the soul then what does that say about what's in my heart? This is not me saying I don't love or that I feel nothing for him. But I'm certainly not in love and you know what, neither is he. Here we are years and kids later and our relationship is more fragile than when we first started 10 years ago. We were stronger for a while but that was before I started working again (that's another blog). Once I realized that love exists between us but not "in love" I decided I was long overdue for using my happy at home. I was living the life of the good housewife (without the wife part) but other than being satisfied that the house and my kids were taken care of, I had no true happy for myself. I lived to make sure everyone around me was happy. If that meant I had to sacrifice to the point it hurt or I lost sleep behind it, I would. I had a family, they have needs, it's all on my shoulders. But it shouldn't be. I'm not the only adult or parent in the house, why is it all on me? Because I'm the matriarch?? I'm too young for that. I've still got life in me. I'm not ready for the rocking chair and babies playing at my knee. Can't I be a mother and still be a woman? Shouldn't my happy constitute more than watching my favorite shows on the telly and readhing a good book once in a while? Of course it should, this is my life and I have to live it. I only have the one. So I started doing more things for myself and asking for what I wanted from my relationship. One would think a man who loves his woman would pat her on the back and say, I'm happy for you, it's about time you started living your life. But no, all I got was more problems. More problems, more arguments, more insecurities rising to the surface. He could use or smother his happiness at will but for me, if my life and love doesn't revolve around what's going on in 1432 then I'm either cheating or I've met someone and am about to cheat. Well before this man came into my life I was strong-willed and independent. I'm still independent but somewhere along the way I gave up my will to make him happy and feel safe. I think at the time I thought it was a temporary but necessary shift to ease his mind and introduce him to a quasi-normal life and a quasi-normal relationship. All it did was turn me into someone I didn't recognize. I'm stronger for it but I'm not happy. But don't cry for me Argentina, I've gone into the cave and when I come out I will be using my happy in epic proportions. My happy will be so explosive and mind blowing it will surely leave bodies in its wake. One in particular. And I can't be concerned with that anymore because that means compromising ME again. I'm no longer inclined to do that. It doesn't make me happy.

"So what if it hurts me. So what if I break down. So what if this world just throws me off the edge, my feet run out of ground. I gotta find my place, I wanna hear my sound. Don't care about all the pain in front of me. I just wanna be..happy" - Leona Lewis