Go Ahead and Get Happy

I am a realist, also known as a pessimist. My worst-case scenarios dress themselves as facts of reality so I listen to them. But by the grace of God, I married an optimist. I fell in love with a man who can find a sunny disposition in the most thunderstorm cloud of circumstances and this has been God’s way of building my character.

We work together, create together, walk through messes and successes together. At our lowest points, I have been fraught with worry and fear. He will join me there for a few minutes and then he will make a joke, do a dance or offer to pick up donuts.

At our highest points, I have been nitpicky about all of the details that could have gone better and will mentally move on to the next thing without taking the proper amount of time to revel in a present good moment. He will laugh, smile until his cheeks hurt, and suggest we do something to celebrate until I have no choice but to give in.

This made me wonder why I can’t just be happy sometimes. Why is my good never good enough to me? Why am I always looking for a way to raise my already unrealistic expectations for myself? What’s up with that?

Having Matt in my life is teaching me to go ahead and get happy. To remember, I’ve been tormented with love so long, experienced plenty of heartbreak. To remind myself, I’m just a human being with flaws and imperfections and that doesn’t make me unworthy of love.

I don’t know if that little girl of divorced parents needs permission to go ahead and get happy or what. I don’t know if all the years I spent trying to integrate myself into the lives of people I wanted to love me, made me feel like there was some bar just a couple of feet shy of my reach and that I would never meet up to its standard.

Experiencing hard times is the lot of every human being, but this doesn’t mean that I can’t shush my realist/pessimist brain when necessary and enjoy the good times when they come. Life will bring plenty of hurts, but I will also experience many great firsts, opportunities to laugh and smile until my cheeks hurt.

I think God wants me to go ahead and get happy. Just because I’m a full-fledged grown adult doesn’t mean I don’t need God to show me I’m okay, to be my dad, to prove to me that I don’t have to keep chasing this unrealistic bar, to show me he’s proud of me, pleased with me, to depend on him to teach me how to simply be myself and be content with that.

So before I critique myself or other people, I’m learning to take the time to be thankful, to say thank God I made it. To say thank you to this amazing Jesus I’ve given my life to. I don’t have to try so hard to be an insider. I don’t have to press my cheeks up against the window of someone else’s family, cool kids table, home.

I have home with God, in conversations with friends, in the love of family, and in my own soul. When I remember this, I feel less of a need to prove myself. I can finally stop trying to figure out what’s wrong with me and just live, love, and enjoy being loved.

My daily realist/pessimist prayer is that God would help me to lean on his grace and learn to go ahead and get happy.

You Make Me Brave

When I was a little girl, my grandma watched two TV shows religiously: “The People’s Court” and “The Young and the Restless.” The latter was referred to as her “stories” and should not be interrupted for conversation or emergency unless it was a commercial break. During the commercials my grandma would chastise or applaud the characters, extracting life lessons on how Nikki and Victor’s relationship wasn’t working because they didn’t “love one another like the Bible says.”

I never scheduled my day around Judge Wapner or Mrs. Chancellor but I found my own “stories” in “Grey’s Anatomy.” I’m a sucker for a hospital drama so I jumped ship from watching “ER” when a young, hip hospital show starring these new interns Meredith, Cristina, Izzy, George, and Alex began.

I chastised Meredith for sleeping with her boss. I felt her pain when she spoke the “Pick Me, Choose Me, Love me” monologue in the scrub room. McDreamy, McSteamy, Burke, the on-call room, the break room, the operating room, the makeups, breakups, firing, hiring, and all the quintessential Shonda Rhimes’ cliffhangers kept me glued to my couch for Netflix “Grey’s” binges and every Thursday once I’d caught up.

I recently watched the season 10 finale and exit of one of my favorite “Grey’s” characters, Cristina Yang, played by phenomenal actress, Sandra Oh. In one of Yang’s final scenes with her best friend, Meredith she said, “You’re my person. I need you alive. You make me brave.”

Maybe my grandma was right. Maybe we can learn something from all the drama in our “stories.” This scene reminded me of all the people who have made me brave, the people I needed to be alive.

For my mom, who by the time she was my age was raising two daughters by herself, worked her dream job and encouraged us to do the same.

For my friends, Kimberly and Bethany who reassured me again and again that I wasn’t crazy to leave the safety of my corporate job for the adventure of becoming a full-time artist.

For my sister who is the best trash talker I’ve ever met and refuses to make herself small for anyone, who helps me to silence the people-pleasing, critical voice that all too often runs rampant in my head.

For my friend Adrienne, who every time I talk to her reminds me that obedience to God is not a weight to carry but a privilege to honor.

For my friends who have struggled with disease, grief, and heartbreak, and as I have watched many of them find joy and gratitude while walking through sorrow, I’m encouraged to be more joyful and grateful too.

Sometimes, it takes us so long to realize we need people and that needing people doesn’t make us weak. Cristina and Meredith reminded me that we can’t be brave by ourselves. We need people. We need someone to be our person.

So find someone who can walk with you, cry and snot with you, pray with you, laugh with you, sit in silence with you, grab your shoulders and speak the truth to you until it hits you right where you need it. When discouragement and pity creep in, lean on your someone and let them help you to be brave, in hopes that when they need it, you can help them to be brave too.