Happiness

Happiness has been on my mind a lot lately-happiness and what it does and does not look like for me. Freedom is tantamount-there's no denying that. I want to be free to live the life of my choosing. I'm almost to the point where I can say with conviction that I have that freedom, but not quite. I'm hindered by a credit card and a car, two examples of my spending resources I didn't have on hand in the name of procuring a little happiness. And the lesson here? Happiness is not a thing that can be bought outright and it is not a thing that can be purchased with money you don't have and paid off later. I think the latter might be worse just because you find yourself continuing to pay on a thing you're no longer invested in. And that's a sort of depressing place to be if you ask me. Not conducive to happiness at all.

In 17 short days I'll be moving out of my current place, and I'm simultaneously relieved and saddened. It is expensive-too expensive if truth be told. I work two jobs and barely bring home enough to manage my living expenses (I might have figured in the cost of a bottle or two of wine to this figure, but I feel that's my right as a mentally exhausted, overworked American). I'm moving back home and doing all that I can to pay off my credit car and that car that I love to hate and hate to love. So utilitarian, so efficient, so sleek and lovely and such a symbol of freedom itself. I mean who doesn't think of hitting the open road from time to time?

I'm moving backward in a sense. I don't need to be told this-I tell it enough to myself. And in a way it hurts, but probably not for the reasons everyone thinks. My pride is not taking a hit. I don't feel that I am unable to care for myself. I could get a cheaper place and maintain that independence. The trouble is, I don't want another place of my own. Not here.

I've tried Kansas City. I've really tried.

A couple of years ago I returned from a 7-month stay in Denmark. I took care of myself, attended language classes every day of the week, managed to support myself on a very limited budget. I trudged through snowbanks and braved rainstorms without an umbrella, which was, believe it or not, a luxury I wouldn't allow myself. I ate out once in 7 months-I don't even recall what I ate to be honest, only that the waitstaff was not very attentive (without tipping, where does the incentive lie?)

I learned to appreciate small grocery stores, more dimly lit places (I swear, American establishments are blindingly bright in comparison), biking for transportation, small filling home-cooked meals of pork and rye bread. I shared a beer with more wonderful people than I can recall. I was invited to brunch on a couple of occasions (the perfect occasion for eating those open-faced sandwiches you hear all about, literally just a slice of dense bread covered in toppings like sausage, hard-boiled egg, and smoked salmon). My primary goals were to find work and improve with the language. I was eerily good with Danish and it still humbles me to think about the sheer number of people I was able to talk to on account of it. Language is the bridge that connects people. I always appreciated it before, but I never knew it could be magic.

There was hardship of course. Lots of awkward, lonely nights. A romantic engagement that fizzled out. Desperate grappling for meaning. Fear of running out of money. The shock of actually running out of money.

I don't miss it and I do. The people tend to be a bit closed-minded. They don't have the same ease with socializing, nor the desire to engage people they don't know. They aren't unkind. I think they're scared to be honest, scared of losing something as more people flood into their tiny country. The bureaucracy I've encountered in the US paled in comparison to that found in Denmark. Everything is so structured it falls apart. That's not a sentence I ever thought I'd see myself write, but it is a true one.  Still, the pace of life, the simplicity, the great love of simply walking....the organic layout of cityscapes. It was all very charming. And coming back was wonderful and terrible all at once.

The bigness of things made me a little dizzy. I was lost the first time I set foot in an American grocery store. In the first months I used the wrong prepositions, favoring the Danish construction but using English words. I'm not sure anyone noticed, but eventually I did. Then it stopped. And I noticed that too.

I tried to bike in my neighborhood and was reminded why it was a bad idea. I was a child filled with crazy delusions, all because I'd done it differently for awhile. I missed biking. Correction. I miss it. I miss it like I miss few other things. And not just biking in the park. But truly biking anywhere I want. Not worrying about whether or not a bike lane will end without notice. Not worrying about being hit or judged. And I realized that Americans do judge bicyclists. They are enthusiasts or they are the poor and there is very little in between. And that is our way I guess. As we are nearing that fateful day when we must choose between one and the other, the truth of our polarized existence is even clearer.

I haven't been at peace here since I got back. I hide it well. I go out and have a good time. I have friends. I don't hold back on those enriching experiences that make my life the beautiful, wonderful thing that it is. But nothing is quite right. I thought a job would improve matters...maybe a car...a place all my own. A life near the center of the city. There has been discovery, a great deal of it honestly. There have been new encounters of every kind. I've felt immeasurably happy at times. But in the end, there's this sense that I'm meant to be moving on.

I want to stumble upon the right road, the right life. Make the right choice that will lead me to the right spot on the planet. Find the right man and live and love and be in all the ways that feel right to my soul. And perhaps I will. We all have to believe that at any rate, don't we? And what happy accidents can carry us to where we need to be?

My job drains me. It barely pays the bills. I look forward to paying off my car and it could become a reality in the next year, but it will take perseverance. And I'll have to find a reason to be in the meantime. And honestly, I'm not sure I have that right now. And then sometimes I think that I do, and it is in sharing myself with people and letting them share themselves with me, in every sense of that word. I'm resilient and looking back on my life, I can't doubt my own strength. I also can't doubt I'm lost.

But if I can survive in a foreign place and let it change me, can't I be found again? Maybe that's how we find ourselves...when nothing else around us makes sense, when we have to rely on ourselves the most. When we're all we have.

I sat down a few months ago, when this feeling was creeping upon me again and getting a little too much to bear. I sat down and I was honest with myself. And I considered: "What makes me happy?" Because that is my life's goal-one of two. I want to be happy and I want to do my part to make the world a better place. There are several goals that might fit within these two very broad goals, but really, I want a simple life. And I want that to be enough.

The answer seemed to be the spaces in between. The things most people let slip their minds I started to hold onto. The drink with a friend. The night out dancing. The steamy perfection of a particularly wonderful cup of tea. The kind stranger in the hostel. The impromptu roadtrip. The way the rain hit my window, striking just the right note as I was trying to coax my restless body to sleep. My cat affectionately crawling into my lap. All the simple new things I tried. Getting the perfect blend of spices in some recipe I was inventing as I went along. That's where my happiness lies. But it's also being in a place where I can experience more of THAT.

People like to say that it doesn't really matter all that much where you are, that happiness exists within yourself. While I think finding happiness is an active process, place matters. Not every place allows you to find yourself and to be yourself. And this place does not allow me to fully be me. Perhaps that's what's so grating. Happiness was experience and this place can't give me the experiences I want to have.

A change is needed, and soon. And while it sometimes feels that I've failed again, I also see the beauty of possibility. Perhaps travel reshapes you so that you don't fit nicely into the space you used to occupy when you return. Like the favorite pair of pants you outgrow, maybe you sometimes have to outgrow old modes of being too, embrace ones that suit you better.

Home is the place you return to at the end of the day. I don't doubt that. But I don't think it's necessarily a certain roof over your head. I think maybe it's a place within yourself.