Finding Your Happy Place

happy place - n.

1. Place inside all of us where we are all happy and get the warm fuzzies. Our happy places are insulated from the jerks that make up just about everyone we encounter.
2. The mental state achieved when one wants to avoid the unpleasant or uncomfortable. Everyone's happy place is different, and usually consists of the things that make them joyous.
3. A psychologically-induced trance-like state, where a person may regress from a stressful situation. A person may go to their 'happy place' when trying to repress unhappy memories from their childhood.
4. A person whom is resting & de-stressing from work.
5. A term used to mean a place visualized or relived in ones mind as horrible or unpleasant things occur

urbandictionary.com


I've been trying to find my happy place lately. At night, when I close my eyes, try to relax, and drift into sleep, I am often kept awake by my ever working brain. I wish I was the kind of person that could just go to sleep as soon as their head hits the pillow, but I'm not. I lay there and rehearse the events of the day, good and bad. I re-think things I said or did and think of ways I could have said or done them better. It's almost like SportsCenter in my brain: Headlines, Top 10 Plays of the Day, analysis, replays, interviews. It's all very tiring.

This is why I've been trying to find my happy place. I need something I can focus on when I go to sleep that will make all the other thoughts slip away. And maybe not even just when I go to sleep, but when the troubles and trials and stresses of life try to get the best of me at any time of the day.

I got the idea recently when reading Johnny Cash's autobiography, Cash. It's really just a collection of stories about how he grew up, the people he knew, his family, his music, his time on the road. Johnny was a very spiritual, Christian man. At one point in the book he talks about how he spends time with God. He finds a quiet place away from everyone, he sits down, and he closes his eyes in a sort of meditative way. He then imagines this place he's been to in the mountains in Alaska. A small patch of ground in the wonderful, big, peaceful forrest. But he doesn't just imagine it. He goes there. It's almost like an out of body experience. And that's where he spends time with God. He goes through this long description of exactly what the place smells like, looks like, sounds like. He knows exactly how far it is from the shore of the ocean and what time of day it is. It's unreal. He probably knows this little patch of ground better than any other spot. And in that moment of meditative prayer, that spot is as real to him as if he were actually there. It blew my mind when I read his beautiful prose about this tiny spot. I wanted one too.

This week I've been imagining myself sitting in a high-backed arm chair in my parent's front living room. I'm wearing my favorite long sleeved t-shirt from high school that has my last name peeling off the back and my gray KU pajama pants. I'm also wearing socks because it's usually freezing in my parents house. I'm wrapped in my almost white, lavender colored robe that I've had longer than I can remember. The red blanket I got as an office Christmas present two years ago is across my lap. I imagine feeling the warmth of the ceramic coffee cup in my hands; the steam rising from the coffee and condensing on my nose as I take a sip. I let out a sigh, as I usually do after my first couple of sips. Amaretto creamer in my coffee. There is a floor lamp turned on next to me to offer a bit of light. It's early morning and there is just enough light to see that the snow is still falling outside. Big, fat, fluffy flakes. Most of the snow fell in the night, and the snow plows haven't come out yet, so most of the snow is undisturbed. Everything is quiet except for the sound of the hot air coming out of the air register in the corner of the room. A small table is to my right with a book on it. The book is Harry Potter y La Piedra Filosofal. There is a green mechanical pencil stuck in the middle of the book and a few yellow, lined sticky notes poking out the top. I just sit there, and stare out the window, and sip my coffee. I sip slowly and silently wish that the coffee would never run out and that the snow would never stop falling. An old Ford pick-up truck with it's headlights on slides through the stop sign at the corner, and the snow keeps falling.

Another happy place involves reading a book in approximately the same spot as my winter scene while rain falls outside. The window is slightly open and I can hear the rain falling. It's not a torrential rain, but a steady downpour. A cool breeze floats in.

Another happy place involves me laying in my childhood bed in Overland Park. My window and door are open, and the attic fan is running down the hall. I can imagine little, six-year old me perfectly. I'm wearing an over sized, navy blue t-shirt that says "Wiegand for Governor". I'm missing one of my front teeth. My skin is brown from playing in the summer sun. I remember exactly what my sheets and bedspread looked like. A small, mutt puppy is snuggled under the covers with me. She has blue eyes.

It's just a start. It's important to know all of the details. That way the image of your happy place flows more easily, and you're not hung up deciding on the details. It must be the same every time. You'll know your scene so well it will be easy to get lost in it. It will be like you're actually there. Breathe deep. In and out.

It seems to me that most of my happy places involve some sort of soothing white noise, or nature sounds. No music, as the words would distract me. No other people, as they would distract me too.

While it has become somewhat of a societal joke for angry people to repeat to themselves in moments of frustration, "I'm going to my happy place!", it's not really a joke for me anymore. It's a reality, and sometimes the only way I can find shalom in everyday trials and tribulations.

A Couple of Moments

"You only get a couple of moments that determine your life. Sometimes only one. And then it's gone. Forever." Jack Burden, All the King's Men

These words echoed in my mind after hearing them. I sat in the dark in my living room and thought about the one moment that determined my life. I couldn't exactly pick just one, but a couple came to mind. It made me sad to think about because most of the moments that came to mind were times when I made the wrong decision, or made no decision, and then the moment was gone. Forever.

In the movie All the King's Men, character Jack Burden is referring to a couple of things. In reference to himself, I think he's referring to a moment in his youth when he could have made love to the love of his life, Anne. However, he chose not to, even though he wanted to. Anne felt rejected and ashamed, and it killed their relationship. I think he considered that the moment that determined his life. If he'd made love to her, they probably would have ended up together and lived happily ever after. Maybe not. But he missed the moment, and it was gone forever.

There are other moments like these for the other characters. Maybe for Anne it would have been the moment in which Willie Stark, the governor of Louisiana and Jack's boss, made her certain promises in return for her "company". She could have said no, but she said yes, and the moment was gone. She broke what was left of Jack's heart and gave away what little was left of her own.

For Willie Stark himself, maybe his moment was when he was about to give a speech at a local fair after finding out that he was just a pawn in a political game. They were using him to split the vote. There was a moment before he started his speech, when he could have chosen to leave and go home, or to just give the speech they gave him. He chose neither, and gave his own angry speech which launched his own, independent campaign. The moment was gone. He ended up dead.

Perhaps Anne's brother Adam's moment was when Willie Stark offered him a job. He could have turned it down, and he did at first, but then there was a moment when he started to re-think his decision. He could have turned it down and remained dismal and broke, but left with his pride and his values. He changed his mind, took the job, and the moment was gone. He ended up dead too, after he shot Stark to death.

If I'd just . . . made love to her.
If I'd just . . . said no to Willie Stark.
If I'd just . . . left the fair and gone home to my wife.
If I'd just . . . turned the job down.

Every now and again, the "If I'd just"s echo in my mind. These moments stick in my head and they replay over and over. I dream about them. I've tossed and turned over them. I've written pages and pages about them. I've cried many tears over them.

I probably won't know if those were the moments that determined my life until I die. Only then will I know whether I let those moments go. The moments in which I was faced with a choice: do or don't; say something or say nothing; do this or do that.

I often say, to myself and to others, that I don't regret the choices I've made in my life, because they've made me who I am. I can't change how those moments passed. But If I said that I never think about those moments and wonder how my life would be if they'd passed differently, I'd be a liar.

I do wonder. If only out of some sort of twisted curiosity. But usually only when listening to a really sad song, witnessing great grief or tragedy, or after watching All the King's Men.