The Experiment – A 365 Day Search For Happiness

It is the most exquisite moment of the day. I have had the dogs out, fed them their breakfast, made the coffee and brought it in here to the studio. I feed Vincent, my Beta fish, light my Hot Apple Pie candle, and get settled. There is an old quilt across my lap and tiny Delilah pug goes in and under the cover, nestles in between my feet and makes a nest in the quilt. Darling Pugsley pug circles me a few times to be loved on and cooed at and then he settles into his cozy bed right beside me. I turn on the computer, make a few notes for the day, and then, still almost too hot, take that first sip of coffee. This is bliss.

It is the first week in September. 3 weeks from today I will be starting the next 365 day project here on the blog, The Year Of Anna, but there are these 3 weeks left of this first 365 day experiment and I am going to savor every day. This year was dedicated to the search for happiness. How was a bipolar woman suffering from serious anxiety, depression, and PTSD who had been having a deeply difficult time for over a year and was just at the very edge, barely the beginning, of feeling better, going to find her way to happiness, and was it even possible, could it be sustained? That was my mission. And it has been an extraordinary year, and many wonderful things have happened, but perhaps the most important thing that has happened is that I have begun to truly appreciate the things that were here all along.

My darling pugs that I wake up with every morning and go to sleep with at night and who are with me throughout all the moments of the day. My sweet children and grandchildren whom I have always loved dearly but seem to have come to appreciate more in this year of learning to appreciate what I have. There is a tremendous shift in your life when you begin to focus more on what you have rather than what you have not. The constant striving, grasping, and longing for that which seems always just out of reach creates a climate in which we can never truly appreciate the life that we have and everything in it. My cozy little home, the huge old trees that surround my house, the kindly neighbors in this quiet old neighborhood at the end of a dead end street. This is my life and I have begun to embrace it in a way I never have in my 64 years. Could there be any greater gift than this? I think not. I went on a search for happiness only to find that it was here all along. Like Dorothy at the end of The Wizard of Oz saying “There’s no place like home,” I have found that to be true in my life.

The pugs are snuggled close and they have gone back to sleep. They are snoring, their soft little puggy snores are the sweetest sounds to me. And beautiful Vincent, a deep garnet color with huge fanning tail swims around and around, I can’t stop watching him. He is poetry in motion. There is dappled light outside my studio windows, such a soothing sight, and a humming sound, cicadas? I’m not sure. The clock ticks loudly on the wall and the ceiling fan turns noiselessly overhead. A crow caws in the distance. I am grateful for all these things.

And this, my morning coffee, the ritual of making it, the moment that I sit down with it signaling a new day has begun, settling into my chair and gliding into the routine that supports my day, these things, they are everything, and then the first sip of coffee, pure bliss. I am here, I am home, a new day, a new week, has begun. My heart is full. I am smiling at my sweet babies snoring. There need be nothing more than this.