“You can’t wait until life isn’t hard anymore before you decide to be happy”

a quote by Nightbirde.

I’ve seen this quote shared so many times this last week and I myself, was one to share it. I shared it and I cried. It’s a statement that very well deserves to be shared a million times over because there has never been a statement more true. This, is the type of “influence” we need to see on our social media feeds, so share it!

Sometimes, you meet someone and you know. You know that you’ll remember them and their words forever. In this case I didn’t technically meet someone, I watched someone I had never seen before, sing a most beautiful song on Americas Got Talent. The song was titled “Its ok.” Besides a brilliant singer singing an even more brilliant song, she’s also a 30 year old woman battling cancer and she was given 2% chance of survival. Her comment about this fact was: well 2% isn’t 0! Along with the opening statement of this blog that will be imprinted in my mind forever.

Honestly, if anyone else said this, anyone; I might have cynically replied, you clearly haven’t lived my life! But this woman, who currently has cancer in her spine, her lungs and her liver saying this, left me beyond speechless. This comes from a psychotherapist who practices, preaches and tries to live by the here and now every day, because when you have one, two or possibly more auto immune conditions to fight every day then there’s nothing more you can do but live today. What I seem to have forgotten however is that living today just isn’t enough. We survive, we march on. But where is the happiness? I must be honest, in my case, happiness was benched for a while because I’ve been through too much this last year and I couldn’t find it within me to simply be happy. There were happy moments. Fleeting moments. When my son cuddles up to me or he says something brave or sweet, when I’m enjoying a sunset, when I’m enjoying a cup of tea. Short serene content moments. But actually happy. Wake up happy, sleep happy, choosing to be happy irrespective of what life threw my way? No I wasn’t. I wasn’t that brave I wasn’t that strong. And yet, I could have been. Because albeit all the new health problems I’ve encountered in this last year and their were quite a few (but that’s another blog,) there were many happy days! Happy days that I didn’t allow myself to fully experience and feel, and I never got myself to say yes I’m ok, it’s ok, I’m happy. Possibly out of fear. Or possibly out of being so accustomed to being pensive and carrying a whole lot of heavy with me and around me, that I couldn’t let myself to really feel happy.

But it’s time. It’s time to let a little bit of that heavy go. So today I’m going to say it. Today I’m ok, today I’m happy, because a 30 year old woman living on the other side of the world inspired me to be. Does it mean I’m not scared or that life suddenly got a little less hard? No, no it doesnt. I still have a procedure and tests to undergo next Monday and things might turn even more sour. But if we wait until life isn’t hard anymore then well, we might never be happy at all because life is that isn’t it? It’s hard! It’s tough. It’s a bitch. It’s life!

I’ve always wanted happiness and so I waited. I waited. Many times I said to myself…If I get over this medical test, if i get over this hurdle, then everything will be ok and I can finally be happy. But after that hurdle comes a summersault, and after that, tends to come another curveball and happiness is postponed yet again. Well thanks to Nightbirde, I’m done postponing happiness. Today, I’m choosing happy with all the issues that I carry.

Because we cannot wait no, and 2% really is not 0 and while I have no idea how this woman managed to find God in all her darkness, she did, with the help of a therapist. Here and in God she found the strength for her battle, and I can do nothing but applaud her and cheer her on. I applaud her from afar because it must take a lot of faith, courage, guts and a little bit of pixie dust to be the person that she seems to be today.

She will never know this, but this woman unexpectedly changed my mind-frame in 7 minutes and 33 seconds and I hope and I trust that the next time I’m sad and in pain and angry at the world or at God, I’ll remember her. I’ll think of her and I’ll try and find it within me to be as strong as she and I encourage any of you to do the same. I also encourage you to watch her video if you haven’t already and I hope it gives you the solace it gave me. I know that this woman can’t possibly be this strong every day. I know this because I read some of her blogs and I see her pain. I see her hardships. I see how badly she fell. But falling is just a passage, it isn’t the endgame, the endgame is finding the means to get back up. I’d normally say to keep going; but today, I’d like to believe that the end game has changed. It’s getting back up to find happiness anywhere that you can find it, and you will find it, just look. But if that doesn’t work, sit still, breathe, believe, and it might find you.