I've been learning, or more accurately, re-learning to be Joyful.

I'm a happy person for the most part. I figure just about anyone one can be happy. In fact, most people say that they want to be happy in life. I'm happy about so many temporary things. Being happy is a reflection of the current situation. Happiness is transient. Joy is long term. It's by nature, a stronger, longer, deeper, more intense state of mind than happiness. Joy is having happiness in the midst of sorrow. Happiness is fleeting, it will abandon you when the tough times come. Happiness degrades into complaining and whining. Happiness is self centered. Joy is all encompassing compassion.  It makes a person reach out, rather than withdraw when the impact of life hits hard. Joy brings contentment. Joy is self renewing. I can create Joy for myself. I can make other people happy; only they can choose to be Joyful. Joy is what remains when Happiness has moved on.

Happiness is fragile.

Joy is strong.

Happiness is an introvert. 

Joy is an extrovert.

Happiness happens.

Joy is a choice.

The last two years have been a challenge.  It's been rough; and interesting, too, to say the least. Coming back here after all this time has proven to be quite the eye-opener. Firstly.. I'm lonely. All my favorite blogs have moved on. I did a quick scan through my subscriptions only to find that the last two years have hard on y'all too. Funny how personal adversity causes migration. I was a part of that herd of deserters. So how can I blame the rest of them?

It's discouraging to "click" on the lot only to find that some of you haven't posted since 2009..  2009.  Am I that clueless; unaware?

I suppose many of the missing moved on searching for the next best thing, or a larger readership.  Maybe they just got a life. Even the lot that run this Xanga are curiously absent. No daily question since December 2012. Really!

In my case, it was life that became increasingly complicated. Crowded. I couldn't discuss what was happening with anyone, not even myself. I would try but the cascade of thoughts was too overwhelming to sort into coherent sentences, much less paragraphs.. essays.. whatever.

Looking back I can now see that it wasn't just one life event that flummoxed me. It was the never-ending compounding of life changing sometimes traumatic events. 

But you know that. We all live in the same world. You all have had the same situations run through your life, too.

I said all that to say this.. I'm movin' on, too. By that, I don't mean leaving. I mean cleaning out my outdated sub list and seeking out other, newer, like-minded xangans. Over the next few months, I intend to unburden my overloaded mind and share, if only with myself, the madness that is was my existence. I also intend to enjoy the telling. I will find the joy buried beneath the sorrow. 

The Bible says, "Joy cometh in the morning"

THIS is my new morning.

And I WILL be glad and rejoice in it!!

Spent the day holding my breath (so I wouldn't puke) and avoiding noise (monster headache). Other than that, it was a warm, lovely and long waited for sumptuous spring day. I sat quietly in the sunshine soaking up God's goodness. I am grateful for this day no matter how lousy the night before was. 

I anticipate a much better tomorrow. I really have to determine what is triggering these bouts of illness. It seems so random, but I can't keep being knocked for a loop so unexpectedly. I loath losing time and having to constantly have a plan B in place; a what if I'm stuck further than four feet from a bathroom. 

H and I did manage to make it to market and to Wally's World.The place is like the twilight zone. Found the stainless steel burner protectors for my outdoor grill but not my everyday bar soap. Also found some planter boxes and ORGANIC parsley seeds. Wally World is the only large box store for 25 minutes in any direction. So if they don't carry and item, it's a trip to the city, lol. 

It's like salt. We all need salt, our bodies crave it. This flesh refuses to function properly and will down right kill us without it. So we seek it out. Where it is scarce it becomes currency more precious than gold. There are markets dedicated solely to salt and all it's various flavors, colors, and crystal composition. Gourmet salt, who knew? For some reason the common salt mined and scraped out of the ground has become the inferior grade. We desire "Sea Salt". Supposedly, it is superior. Yet our bodies don't give a lick whether the salt is from the ground or the sea. Any old salt will satisfy the bodies need.

I can remember my daughter telling me how she and her husband would go out and harvest salt in Hawaii. A few days after a storm, they would go to the areas where the waves would crash upon the shore and leave small pools of salt water in depressions on the lava benches. In those few days the water would evaporate and leave the sea salt behind. It was important to get it at the optimal time. Too soon and there's too much water and too little salt. Too late and the salt would be dirty or blown away. "Ya gotta know when to skim, Mom! It's an art."

Time is like that. It slowly disappears leaving behind the bits and bobs of memory and life. Ya gotta know when to skim....

To stand at the edge of the sea, to sense the ebb and flow of the tides, to feel the breath of a mist moving over a great salt marsh, to watch the flight of shore birds that have swept up and down the surf lines of the continents for untold thousands of year, to see the running of the old eels and the young shad to the sea, is to have knowledge of things that are as nearly eternal as any earthly life can be.”

Rachel Carson