Longing and Happiness

I miss him. I miss him so much. It's unbelievable how much I can still miss a person so much after "so long" and so constantly. Emotions are a powerful thing, and it's arguable that longing may be the most powerful of them all.

I've also been missing my grandpa. I love my grandpa. And I miss him so much too. It's true that I did get to say goodbye to him unlike with Evan, so maybe that's why I'm not "grieving" him like I am with Ev. It's also true that he lived a long full life and my brother had so much more to live.

But missing two very very dear individuals so much, so constant, so overwhelmingly consuming that they possess your mind ALL THE TIME is rough on a soul. Don't get me wrong- I'm not miserable. But I WOULD give anything to have them back.

I don't want people to confuse grief with sadness. To me, at least, grief is something oh so much more different than sadness. Sadness typically is one emotion, one layer, and you normally snap out of it at some point. Grief is a wide complexity of emotions, a roller coaster of them, you never know what emotion is going to come when. And it can be many layers of emotions at once. For example, I'm always "sad" but I can be "happy" at the same time. Does this make any sense to someone who has not lost someone they love? I don't know.

I want to speak a bit on what I mean by the fact that I am "happy". I prefer to think of it more like...
awoken
enlightened
challenged

or in other words, I try think of happiness in terms of actions that make my life WORTH something:
happiness is giving back
happiness is challenging yourself
happiness is becoming a better person
happiness is forgiving
happiness is peace
happiness is learning
happiness is meaningful relationships
happiness is meaningful experiences

I am on a mission to become a happier person. If that's not a Fanny Pack Impact, than I don't know what is! ;) And don't think of "happy" as our shallow society tends to think of it. Think of it as all the reasons listed above. My brother and my grandpa were the epitome examples of happy people- zest for life, laughter around the table, drawn to them in a room, hanging on to every word they said, never getting enough time with them, smiles light up the room, you name it. I want to be that. Not because of what others think of me, but because it's MY life and it's MY responsibility to make the most of it. And to honor them, their IMPACTS, their legacies, their life lessons they left behind.

so SMILE, do something nice for yourself, and remember...try to find your inner happiness. :)

What do I think the meaning of life is? Here it is.

Saw this and loved it. Please don't be afraid to make me cry-
 it might even be tears of joy because you remember them and
that they impacted your life.

Grandpa goofing around with beanie babies ;)

There were so many goofy pictures of Evan- but I always
 loved this one. Totally hamming it up for the camera. ;)