Stop Waiting For Someone Else

 Just bringing back out a little something that I wrote about a year ago.

This week has been hard. I have been pushed down into the depths of despair and stress. Finals are next week for the University, yet somehow I have less motivation than I’ve had all semester. I sit in the library with my books filling up the round table in front of me. I’m near tears as my to-do list grows and grows. My determination to finish this assignment is fading fast. What’s worse in this situation is that I feel completely alone. I wish that someone I know will walk up to me. I pray that someone will be sent to cheer me up, to push these tears back for good, to make me smile again, to bring back my happiness. “I just need a friend” I sigh in hopelessness.

            I swallow hard, and take a short break from my studying. I watch a Youtube video of Rachel Platten singing. I find myself watching another and another and putting off my homework for a little longer. This girl is memorizing: she’s beautiful, yes, and she has a nice voice, but that’s not what I really notice. I notice that she, and even the drummer behind her, are enjoying themselves so much. She’s bright and vibrant. She smiles and laughs as she sings and her whole face lights up. She puts everything into her songs. Her eyes are shining as she belts out the lyrics she knows so well. She obviously loves what she is doing.

            I almost laugh at myself in that moment. I’m a sad excuse of happiness as I sit in a wooden chair waiting for one of the hundreds of people in the building to bring me my happiness. It’s my happiness, isn’t it? I should be the one who finds it. Happiness isn’t something to be brought, it’s something that should be found.

            Happiness is marking things off on my to-do list, it’s that group laughing about statistics, its figuring out a problem, finishing a math quiz. Happiness is listening to your favorite song, it’s drumming along with your pencils on the table top. Happiness is headphones in your ears, and cold water in drinking fountains, it’s smiling at that boy from your science class who searches your face because he recognizes you from somewhere but can’t place you. Happiness is green trees and beautiful flowers, it’s the sun shining down on you, the bright blue sky spattered with towering white clouds. Happiness is your shadow that never leaves, it’s not having to wait at the crosswalk.

            Happiness is shaved legs, it’s warm days, sour candies, and mason jars. Happiness is someone’s face lighting up with a smile, it’s flirting with that cute boy. Happiness is family, friends, and people who smile and say “hi” as you pass by. Happiness is spiral staircases, hardwood floors, and playing in piles of sawdust. It’s low gas prices, sparkly nail polish, jeans that actually fit your body type. It’s Disney music, soft blankets, long hugs, and fluttery dresses made for twirling. It’s story books and tan lines, dancing in the rain and going on long trail runs, it’s home and baby hands, warm towels and braided hair. It’s camping and nature and mountains and seeing God’s hand in your life. It’s Utchdorf’s accent, and going to the temple. Happiness is pictures of loved ones hanging straight on decorated walls, tennis balls, and comfy couches. It’s photo booths, and goldfish, and fountains. It’s letters in mailboxes and leaf blowers and children running through sprinklers on hot summer days. Happiness is family photos and Throwback Thursdays and clean bathrooms. Its warm jackets and snow boots, matching hangers and polka dots on little girls’ dresses, ice cubes in lemonade and Costa Vida, and 53 cent soda refills at McDonald’s. It’s white water rafting, and diving into pools of clear blue. It’s brush strokes on a canvas that turn into a work of art, completed jigsaw puzzles, skyping family, teal bracelets, fields of corn and pivots, sandals, picnics, laying on blankets in grass, juicy hamburgers with all the toppings, playing the guitar, sisters, and breakfast burritos. Happiness is the little every day, seemingly mundane, things that we encounter during the course of our regular day, we just have to find it.