Hide and Seek Winner

On the back of a gum smooshed in the corner, folded in half piece of paper...I wrote.  With the elderly gentlemen sitting next to me staring at my fast moving hand...I wrote.    

So feverishly my handwriting resembled that of a teenage boy when I was through.    

But I had something stirring and it needed out.  

It was a moment I could've missed so easily, like the flash of a reflection in the store window, but for some reason I snapped on to the ever so fleeting passing of this thought, "Home.  My home is all that I've ever wanted it to be."  And please understand when I speak of home, it is not the actual walls of my house, it is more so the idea of where I am in my life and the people I love in my life and the feelings I have in my life.  

It's a never ending journey.  An every day, even an every hour or every minute trip I am on.  One in which I decide a few things but yet don't get a choice in so many others.  However, I'm learning more and more, the thing named choice is a winner in the game of hide and seek.  Because often, it is there.  Hiding.  Woven into situations where it may not be easily recognized nor acknowledged.  But it is still there.  

Choice is the winner.  The choice in how I react.  The choice in my mood.  The choice in my words.  The choice in my actions.  

Here comes the BEST ONE.  

The one I find the hardest, yet by far the most rewarding?  

The choice in my thoughts.  

Feel the hurt or the pain or the this is yucky or let the mad in.  But not for long.  Feel it, forgive it, and move on.  

Jump in and live it and then let it live.

There are shitty things happening all the time to me or to my family or to my friends or to complete strangers.  Shitty, shitty things that make life far from perfect or enjoyable or tolerable even.  But I choose to not stay in those things.  Yes, I just cursed like a sailor.  Sometimes it's the only way for the words to match.    

I choose to keep happy, stay the positive course, ask myself what I can do to help and then act.  Whether it's kicking my own negative thoughts to the curb or jumping in my car to go for a friend. 

The other night I was at a bar.  Yes, I go to those.  I know I'm a teacher, but I'm also a real person.  One who goes out and occasionally curses.  It's like the first time a student sees you outside of school, the absolute look of astonishment that you grocery shop.  With sweatpants on.  Anyway, I was at this bar and quickly started visiting with this middle aged couple who were bellied up.  I was not purposefully trying to be happy or ridiculous or fun or anything, I was simply being me.  And about an hour into the whole ordeal, the lady turned to me and said with a wave of her hand, "It's like you live in a land of magic or something.  Where nothing bad ever happens."  

I couldn't help but laugh on the outside and give myself a high five on the inside.  I laughed out loud because yes, I live in a land of magic.  I really do.  I'm happy and I like to sing silly songs to people and feel the need to yell in excitement and clap my hands together more than a 28 and 3/4 year old should and ugly laugh often and I reference glitter and unicorns and I throw around hugs and whip out cheerleader jumps.   

I gave myself a high five on the inside because that's exactly the person I want to be.  The person who a total stranger thinks nothing bad ever happens to and who lives in a land of magic and who is so happy it is hopefully contagious.  Yes, that is the person I not only want to be, it's the person I am meant to be.  I feel that more now than I ever have.   

Because believe me, bad has happened to me.  It still happens to me.   

Bad things happen around me.  To those souls I love which makes me hurt even more than when the bad is directed my way.  

Bad things stream in.  One after the other.  But, I choose magic land. 

I choose it every single time.  Life's too short to not be happy.  Ridiculously happy.