Brother Mike read all 20+ of my blog posts at the same time sitting beside me in his family room.  When he finished, I asked him what he thought.  Well, you are homeless and you feel free.

I had nothing to say back.  I sat in silent contemplation, deciding maybe I needed to stop writing.  After a few minutes, I realized that Mike clearly had boiled down my experience to its essence.   However, I need a few more words.  So, I allowed myself to once again feel the intense sense of freedom and happiness when I hit the road as I left his wonderful homestead.

Sometimes as I drive on road trips, I burst out in laughter.  Sometimes I break out in song. I often catch myself grinning. Areas that I’ve traveled by a hundred times look brand new to me. The world seems to sparkle a bit brighter.

So, when I was at a dinner party two nights ago, I was talking to a good friend and I heard myself say that I was happier than any time in my life, I was surprised that I instantaneously wanted to also throw up—that I felt like I had just become a huge cliché. I simultaneously heard a 16-year-old girl talking to her girlfriends giddily KNOWING that she would marry her current boyfriend. I heard a 21-year-old girl/woman swooningly about to marry her young love. I heard a new mother who was overwhelmed having just birthed her new baby. I heard a 40-year-old woman who had FINALLY found true love in her third husband. Yuck!

What was happening to me? What in the hell was I THINKING and/or FEELING?! Of course I wasn’t the happiest that I had ever been in my entire life? I have lived a pretty darn good life.

Fortunately I was talking to a centered, thoughtful friend who immediately provided a different perspective. He said that he thinks that I am experienced and old (mature) enough to truly appreciate what a lack of great responsibility means. I agreed. Today, my sister, Julie, just told me she thinks that I am so happy because I always live my life full-throttle regardless of circumstances and I am getting an opportunity to truly go for it. I’ll have to think about that one a bit more.

I have always been amazed that each person’s new, latest lover and/or mate is SO much better than the last one.  But, of course, that HAS to be true.  Why wouldn’t that be true? Why would anyone fall in love with someone who wasn’t better/funnier/nicer than the last husband/wife/lover?

We should always demand more of life as we get older and more experienced. Life is here for us to live. Sometimes we don’t have choices and it is dealt to us and we make the best of it. But, for goodness sake, if you have choices, and you don’t go for it and live it to the fullest, then that’s on you!

So, I’ve done a 180 and decided that, yes, I indeed AM the happiest I have ever been in my life!  Maybe I WAS really happy walking through the streets of Marrakech, Morroco. Maybe I WAS extremely happy sitting on the rocks watching and listening to the crashing waves in Perkins Cove in Ogunquit, Maine. Maybe I was ecstatically happy watching the sun rise over Mt. Everest in Nepal. Whatever. That was then. This is now. The future’s never coming and the past has never been.

I am loving life.  ‘Nuf said.

Merry Christmas!