Happiness Is a Choice

From waking up screaming over lucid dreams about my late husband five years ago, to waking up disoriented and wondering what the dream was all about in the first place, I've come a long way. There's a calm in my dreams now when he's around. Two days ago, I dreamt of him laughing, smiling and mingling with people at a social gathering.

The thrower of house parties — he simply loved them. Friends would come and stay all night, and sometimes even the morning after. Legendary house parties is how I can best describe them now. Do I have the bandwidth, energy or interest to throw any of those now? Absolutely not, because I'm not in my late 20s anymore.

The point is, his dimples are still there and he's happy, which means I'm probably as happy as I can be as well, at this particular stage of my life — with and without dramatic conversations with my 7-year-old.

Talking about that 7-year-old, he told me very plainly two nights ago, "Most of my body has been given to me by my father — my blood group, my face, my ears — but from the inside, Maamaa, my insides are all you."

So, for the sake of my child, whose insides I've apparently created, I choose calm and collected over the grief-ridden, disoriented, heartbroken widow I once was. Phone calls with me five years ago would break people's hearts because I would talk utter rubbish. There was no method to my madness; it was just madness.

Spirit communication and wondering why I was left to live while my heart was ripped away from my soul were the only two things that occupied my mind. And then work happened, and my grief took a more focused direction. I was crying only over weekends now and occasionally felt heavy boulders in my chest, each time I saw a management consultant in the office.

As I was saying, happiness — it truly is a choice. It's all about how you set the tone for your mood and your day at 5 AM.

For example, today I've woken up feeling like I could have slept some more, and I'm still vaguely recalling that all-night dream I had about my late husband sometime over the course of this week. But I choose happiness today, and for this entire weekend.