Most of my life (the first twenty years) I always placed happiness on the highest ground. It wasn't tangible let alone reachable. 

Happiness was some sort of destination that was a faraway land, and, coming from a girl like me, it was a far fetched idea- like dreaming of San Tropez or Bali. 

I thought I would be happier if I had a nicer car than my 2004 Taurus. 

I thought I would be happier if I went to an Ivy League school instead of the local college. 

I thought I would be happier if my parents had money instead of working blue collar jobs. 

I thought I would be happier if I could leave this city, state, country, (planet?) and go off on an independent adventure. 

I thought I would be happier if I moved to New York. 

Well, plain in simple, I wasn't. I was the saddest, emptiest, most terrified soul I'd ever been in my short life. 

I was terrified to look myself in the mirror and see that, after all the progressive change into what I "thought" would make me happy, made me sadder. I was a sad sack. And it showed on my face, on my body.  Pale, frail, ghost like. 

I've realized happiness is not a journey. There is no end-destination. It's an everyday conscious decision. I know some will argue the case of chemical imbalances and severe depression, and I do think that is another level- one that I am not seasoned to understand the treatment of. But I do believe we all have choices and we all have the ability to feel happiness. 

And I choose to be happy today. To take in the air, let it fill my belly, my lungs, my chest. Release. To be ok with the sadness that sometimes hits, to be ok with the fact the life is not and never will be perfect. To be thankful, oh so thankful, for my wildly crazy family. My home. And my friends. Thankful for coffee, for books and art, for words on paper and the implicit beauty of a flower.